{"id":12933,"date":"2010-04-19T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=12933"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:40:07","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:40:07","slug":"marine-life-census-reveals-previously-unknown-sea-creatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/04\/marine-life-census-reveals-previously-unknown-sea-creatures\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Life Census Reveals Previously Unknown Sea Creatures"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Ann<\/a>
Ann Bucklin, professor of marine sciences, in her lab at the Avery Point Campus. Photo by Peter Morenus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international research program aimed at assessing the diversity of ocean life, has released its first data on tiny sea creatures.<\/p>\n

One of the field projects within the Marine Life Census, the Census of Marine Zooplankton, has sampled the ocean\u2019s zooplankton more extensively and systematically than any previous survey. It is directed by Professor Ann Bucklin, head of UConn\u2019s Department of Marine Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvertebrates in general are lovely,\u201d says Bucklin. \u201cThey\u2019re just odd, weird, and sometimes scary. You look at them through a microscope and you think, wow, if that thing were big, it would really be something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Census of Marine Life<\/a>, with 14 different field projects, involves thousands of researchers in more than 80 countries collaborating to describe the ocean\u2019s biodiversity. Before the advent of the Census, about 230,000 ocean species were known to science, but researchers estimate that two to three times this number actually exist. At least 5,300 new species have been discovered thus far in the Census.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Holothurian.<\/a>
A pink sea cucumber living in the Celebes Sea, one of the potential new species discovered by the Census of Marine Zooplankton. Photo by L. Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bucklin says, however, that convincing Census leaders that zooplankton \u2013 animals that drift on the ocean\u2019s currents \u2013 were important to survey took some work. Although the Marine Life Census began in 2000, the Census of Marine Zooplankton<\/a> didn\u2019t begin until 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe census started by surveying the \u2018charismatic megafauna\u2019,\u201d she says, referring to large marine mammals and fish. \u201cIt took four years of going to workshops to convince them that zooplankton are also interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Census of Marine Zooplankton aims to survey the diversity, abundance, and distribution of marine holozooplankton \u2013 animals that spend their lives drifting on the ocean\u2019s currents. Like other projects within the Marine Life Census, it uses DNA barcoding techniques to identify species with certainty, since many species are cryptic, or look a lot like one another. These techniques involve sequencing a short portion of an organism\u2019s DNA to identify it.<\/p>\n

Bucklin\u2019s laboratory at UConn\u2019s Avery Point campus is the project\u2019s major hub for DNA barcoding. In addition to sequencing the DNA of many of the project\u2019s collected species, the lab has now trained more than 20 students and post-doctoral researchers from around the world. The Census of Marine Zooplankton has discovered several hundred new species of zooplankton to date, but Bucklin and her colleagues suspect that once all their data have been analyzed from collections around the globe, the current number of known species will double from 7,000 to 14,000.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Ann<\/a>
A copepod, a deep-ocean species found in the Sargasso Sea. Photo by R. Hopcroft, University of Alaska, Fairbanks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This recognition of species is very important, she says. In recent decades, scientific interest in many fields has shifted from studying individual species to a focus on ecological patterns and processes of groups of species, and the science of classifying species has fallen out of fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecies are a benchmark for understanding big issues like ecosystem health and responses to climate change,\u201d she says. \u201cThe Census has been a big win for us: People are again appreciating the value of recognizing species.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Marine Life Census will report its final results in an official symposium and press conference<\/a> on October 4 in London. With the Census drawing to a close, the researchers are now thinking about how to put all their data to good use. Knowing the distribution and abundance of so many of the ocean\u2019s species will help them understand the inter-relationships of species that support Earth\u2019s natural cycles, such as the marine food web and the global cycling of elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Census asked the question of what species are out there,\u201d Bucklin says. \u201cNow we need to use those data to ask why those species are where they are. We want to know how the oceans change over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Census is already garnering international media attention, including an article in the April 19 Times <\/em>of London<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn marine scientist Ann Bucklin headed one of the projects, surveying zooplankton around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-12933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-28 14:08:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12933"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37122,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933\/revisions\/37122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12933"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=12933"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}