Marine Census

The just completed Marine census reveals the richness of marine biodiversity. It could account for more than 20,000 new species to the list of 2.3 lakh known species. Certain interesting findings are also reported which include the rediscovery of a Jurassic shrimp, supposed to be extinct about 50 million years ago.
The census was conducted with the help of 2,700 scientists from 670 laboratories of more than 80 nations belonging to all continents. It was a herculean task spanning over a decade. This amount of work to assess the biodiversity of the oceans was the first of its nature. The results obtained are being analysed and lots of interesting results can be expected.

Oceans are found to be very rich in microbial population. It is considered that there would be at least 25,000 species of bacteria in one litre of sea water. The scientists had to spend more than 9000 days in the sea in more than 540 oceanographic expeditions as part of the census work. The census could locate more than 6,000 potentially new species and could complete formal descriptions of more than 1,200 of them. Bar coding of more than one lakh marine species is also completed as part of the census. The studies also point towards high depletion (around 90%) of various species like reef fishes, tuna, shark and whales.