Census of Marine Life Secretariat

Paul Snelgrove Gives Census Talk at The Rooms Provencial Museum

Will Ramos — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:17:04 +0000

Dr. Paul Snelgrove, Memorial University, Canada

Dr. Paul Snelgrove gave a talk on the Census of Marine Life at the The Rooms Provencial Museum in St. John’s Canada on Wednesday November, 16. The talk was well attended, with over 120 people present. Dr. Snelgrove emphasized the many interesting discoveries of the Census, the role international collaboration and how much is still unknown about the ocean. For more information about the talk, please see the article in the Telegram.

Census of Marine Life to be Featured During The 2011 International Cosmos Prize Commemorative Lecture

Will Ramos — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:20:04 +0000

In this photo, a marble-sized jellyfish (calycopsis borchgrevinki) is shown. They are one of the more common hydromedusae encountered in Antarctic waters. (Russ Hopcroft/University of Alaska Fairbanks, Census of Marine Life)

This symposium is held to commemorate the 2011 Cosmos Prize winner, The Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the Census of Marine Life (CoML).

Dr. Ian Poiner, chairperson of the committee will deliver a lecture themed “The achievement and the future of the Census of Marine Life”.

After the lecture, members of the Census of Marine Life and a member of the screening committee of the Cosmos Prize discuss the world of the Census of Marine Life. The event will be held on October 22, 2011 from 1:30-4:30pm at the UN University Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. For More information, please see http://isp.unu.edu/events/2011/international-cosmos-prize-commemorative-lecture.html.

Please click here for more coverage of this event in English, and here for more coverage in Japanese.

Programme

13:00	Doors open
13:00 – 13:35	Opening
13:35 – 14:35	Commemorative Lecture “The Achievements and the future of the Census of Common Life” 2011 International Cosmos Prizewinner Dr. Ian Poiner, Chairperson, SSC of CoML
14:35	Break
14:50 – 16:30	Symposium “The World of CoML” Coordinator: Yoshihisa Shirayama, Member of SSC of CoML; Executive Director of Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology Panelists: Dr. Ian Poiner, Chairperson, SSC of CoML Mr. Jesse Ausubel, Co-Founder, SSC of CoML, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, adjunct scientist Dr. Katsunori Fujikura, Representative, National and Regional Implementation Committees, Japan, CoML Senior Researcher, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology Dr. Kazuhiko Takeuchi, Member of International Cosmos Prize Screening Committee of Experts Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Sciences, the University of Tokyo
16:30	Closing

*Simultaneous interpretation in English and Japanese will be provided.

Nancy Knowlton Receives Heinz Award

Will Ramos — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:35:17 +0000

Nancy Knowlton is a marine biologist at the Smithsonian NMNH. Photo by Christian Ziegler.

Nancy Knowlton is among the 2011 recipients of the prestigious Heinz Award. The Heinz Award recognizes significant achievements benefitting the environment, and Dr. Knowlton is noted for her role in coral reef research, including with the Census of Marine Life, and outreach activities, including the Census book Citizens of the Sea (a National Geographic and Census of Marine Life publication) and her ongoing project, Beyond the Obituaries, celebrating success stories in ocean conservation. http://www.heinzawards.net/pub/rounds/pdf/17th_Heinz_Awards_General_Press_Release.pdf

New Sonar Technology Reveals City-size Schools of Fish

Will Ramos — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:28:52 +0000

(Click to enlarge) Credit: Fred Bavendam/Getty Images

In an IEEE Spectrum feature, researcher Nicholas Makris discusses UFOs (“unidentified floating objects) and an exciting breakthrough for his sonar technology.

Read the full story: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/new-sonar-technology-reveals-citysize-schools-of-fish

8.7 Million Species on Earth and Counting

Will Ramos — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:01:00 +0000

: Kiwa hirsuta, also dubbed the “yeti crab” for its silky blond setae that resembles fur, was one of some 6000 new species discovered by Census of Marine Life scientists. This interesting looking crustacean was discovered in 2005 in the South Pacific. Credit: A. Fifis/IFREMER.

Census of Marine Life Scientists Announce New Estimated Number of Species on Earth

Eight million, seven hundred thousand species (give or take 1.3 million). That is a new, estimated total number of species on Earth — the most precise calculation ever offered — with 6.5 million species found on land and 2.2 million (about 25 percent of the total) dwelling in the ocean depths.

Announced today, August 23, 2011, by Census of Marine Life scientists, the figure is based on an innovative, validated analytical technique that
dramatically narrows the range of previous estimates. Until now, the number of species on Earth was said to fall somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Furthermore, the study, published today by PLoS Biology, says a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued.

To read the full release:

8.7 Million Species on Earth and Counting: Release

To read the full, open access paper on PLoS:

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

Related Links:

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) story: http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=2649&ArticleID=8838&l=en

University of Hawaii : http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/mora/PressRoom.html

LICO: A new program, Life in a Changing Ocean, will build on the success of the
Census of Marine Life. For more information, see www.lifeinachangingocean.org.

Census community awarded 2011 Cosmos Prize

Will Ramos — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:38:38 +0000

It was announced on July 27 that the Census of Marine Life Scientific Steering Committee was awarded the 2011 International Cosmos Prize for its excellent research and work that contributed to a significant understanding of the relationships among living organisms, the interdependence of life and the global environment, and the common nature integrating these interrelationships. This is a great honor for the 2,700 Census scientists and numerous sponsors and partners who believed a Census of Marine Life was necessary and could be accomplished. More at: http://www.coml.org/cosmos-prize

Report reviewing Census program now available

Will Ramos — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:39:32 +0000

The final report, by David Penman and colleagues, reviewing the lessons learned from the Census of Marine Life program, particularly its governance and management related aspects, is now availalble. Read the report here.

Arctic Ocean Diversity (ArcOD) Project Guest Edits Special Issue

Will Ramos — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:12:42 +0000

Sea Star from B. Bluhm and K. Iken, ArcOD Project

The Arctic Ocean Diversity (ArcOD) project of the Census of Marine Life guest edited this month’s issue of the journal Marine Biodiversity. The issue is entitled: Arctic Ocean Diversity: Synthesis. For more information on the issue, please click here. For more information on ArcOD, please see the project website.

Pacific’s California Current Likened to Africa’s Serengeti Plain – Teeming with Animal Hotspots, Well-defined Highways, Annual Homecomings

Will Ramos — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:42:59 +0000

(Click to enlarge) Tagged elephant seal (photo by Dan Costa)

Like the vast African plains, two huge expanses of the North Pacific Ocean are major corridors of life, attracting an array of marine predators in predictable seasonal patterns, according to final results from the Census of Marine Life Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) project published today in the journal Nature.

The paper, co-authored with the Census Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP) program, culminates the TOPP program’s decade-long effort to track top marine predator movements in the Pacific Ocean. It presents for the first time the results for all 23 tagged species and reveals how migrations and habitat preferences overlap — a remarkable picture of critical marine life pathways and habitats. The study found that major hot spots for large marine predators are the California Current, which flows south along the US west coast, and a trans-oceanic migration highway called the North Pacific Transition Zone, which connects the western and eastern Pacific on the boundary between cold sub-arctic water and warmer subtropical water — about halfway between Hawaii and Alaska.

Press Release

Washington Post news story

Census of Marine Life Participates in Panel on Next Steps in Ocean Policy & Research

Will Ramos — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:39:11 +0000

Staff from the Census of Marine Life International Secretariat presented during the panel New Ventures and Next Steps in Ocean Policy and Research. The panel was organized by the D.C. Marine Community, a program of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and held at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership offices on June 16. Census of Marine Life Program Specialist, Heather Mannix, presented an overview of the Census of Marine Life program and Kristen Yarincik, Senior Program Manager, presented the potential next steps for the Census of Marine Life community, the Life in a Changing Ocean program. They were joined by Michael Conathan, Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress, who discussed the Center’s new focus on ocean issues. There was lively discussion after the panel, with suggestions coming from the audience on possible directions for the new programs.

Presentations:

Census of Marine Life Overview
Heather Mannix, Census of Marine Life Program Specialist

Life in a Changing Ocean: Building on the Success of the Census of Marine Life
Kristen Yarincik, Senior Program Manager

Other Links:

Life in a Changing Ocean

Center for American Progress, Michael Conathan