Marine Biodiversity and Biogeography – Regional Comparisons of Global Issues, an Introduction

Ron O'Dor,Patricia Miloslavich,Kristen Yarincik,Stuart Humphries

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011871

Abstract

The Census of Marine Life grew out of a series of global concept meetings, following a 1995 U.S. National Research Council report indicating that no nation in the world could list the species that live in its offshore exclusive economic zone, as required under the Convention on Biological Diversity. A series of “Known, Unknown, Unknowable” meetings convened in every ocean region enabled the Census Scientific Steering Committee to compile information and enlist people from around the world to form a network of National and Regional Implementation Committees in support of a global effort to resolve this knowledge void. This collection represents the assembled results of their activities. As these data are incorporated into the Census' Ocean Biogeographic Information System and made available through its new home at the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, they will be the best records of most countries' marine biodiversity. The people, technologies, and associations of the Census will play a key role the UN General Assembly's future Regular Marine Assessments. This collection is a major legacy of the Census' US$650 million “Decade of Discovery” to be released in London in October 2010.

Highlights

By the mid-1990s, it was already clear that the oceans, routinely treated as limitless sources and sinks for human consumption and waste, were changing in response to intense fishing, pollution, and climate change [1]
Fred Grassle, as a member of the U.S National Research Council committee that wrote a report advising a scientific approach to studying marine biodiversity, initiated discussions with Jesse Ausubel, a program officer for the Alfred P
The outcome of their discussions was a series of concept meetings focusing on the question of whether it was possible to document what lives in the world oceans, so that the changes could be monitored and understood [2]

Summary

Introduction

By the mid-1990s, it was already clear that the oceans, routinely treated as limitless sources and sinks for human consumption and waste, were changing in response to intense fishing, pollution, and climate change [1]. Sloan Foundation, recognizing that science had sampled less than 0.1% of the volume of the oceans The outcome of their discussions was a series of concept meetings focusing on the question of whether it was possible to document what lives in the world oceans, so that the changes could be monitored and understood [2]. The scope of the Census program quickly made it clear that its scale would require a new sort of global collaboration [2,4] to achieve its goals. This necessity was the origin of the National and Regional Implementation Committees (NRICs), the main source of the information assembled in this collection. Because of the complex evolution of the program and the NRICs, some context is essential to understand the origins of the information

Background

GoMx GBRSB

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research affiliate

Discussion

Findings

Countries engaged