Mission: Assess and explain the changing diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine species from the past to the present, and project future marine life.
Scope: Global marine life since fishing became ecologically important, from icy polar to warm tropical waters, from tidal zones shared by humans to obscure trenches 10,000 meters deep, from microscopic plankton in the light and sea lions plunging into the dark to worms in abyssal sediments, from organisms shifting on the slopes of seamounts to ones tolerating fiery oceanic vents, the 5 percent of the ocean that is fairly regularly visited and the 95 percent of the ocean whose life is largely unexplored.
Strategy: Through 2010, scientists worldwide will exploit and organize what is known, shrink the unknown, and minimize diversion into the unknowable. Three large questions define the tasks of the Census: What did live in the oceans? What does live in the oceans? What will live in the oceans? Globally, scientists collaborating in CoML are mining historical and environmental archives, typically since about the year 1500, to write a History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP), quantifying how fishing and environmental fluctuations changed what lived in the oceans. Fourteen cooperative international Ocean Realm Field Projects as well as affiliated national efforts are exploring the diversity, distribution, and abundance of what lives in six ocean realms from tidal zones to deep trenches. The observers in the field projects, as well as HMAP, deposit their data in the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a global georeferenced database about marine species, accessible on the web with tools for visualizing relations among species and environments. The Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP) network integrates the extensive Census-generated data in mathematical models to predict how environmental and human influences will change what will live in the oceans.
Progress: Since 2000, CoML planned its research and outreach, formed management at national, regional, and international levels, entered partnerships with major international organizations concerned with marine biodiversity, raised funds, and got in the water. Researchers from more than 70 nations are working together. In 2003, its Baseline Report provided a filter for explorations likely to yield the great surprises. HMAP completed case studies of southeast Australia and southwest Africa. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge project collected 80,000 specimens from this undersea mountain range. OBIS is on track to serve 10 million records covering all known marine species by 2007. FMAP charted evolving biodiversity hot spots for fish in the open ocean.
Completion: After passing established milestones in 2005 and 2007 and concluding in 2010, CoML will have shrunk the unknown with a census of diversity, distribution, and abundance. It will grant legacies of improved methods for biological sensing for the Global Ocean Observing System, access to data on marine life in OBIS, information for wise management of marine resources, and a better informed public.
Legacies: CoML works toward the following legacies beyond 2010: (1) a sustained, dynamic OBIS that serves the needs of the scientific community, as well as those of government, industry, and educators; (2) proven technologies and approaches to surveying marine biodiversity that can be replicated by researchers globally and implemented in monitoring programs and ocean and coastal observation systems; (3) increased public interest in the oceans and marine life and support for ongoing research; (4) centers of excellence in marine biodiversity to build capacity in the developing world; (5) identification of a new generation of ocean biogeographers and ecologists.
