Census Of Marine Life Research Articles

Challenges for Marine Ecological Assessments: Completeness of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable Biodiversity Data in European Seas

The ongoing contemporary biodiversity crisis may result in much of ocean’s biodiversity to be lost or deeply modified without even being known. As the climate and anthropogenic-related impacts on marine systems accelerate, biodiversity knowledge integration is urgently required to evaluate and monitor marine ecosystems and to support suitable responses to underpin a sustainable future. The Census of Marine Life (CoML, 2000–2010) was the largest global research program on marine biodiversity. A decade after, and coinciding with the steep increase of digitalization of our society, we review existing findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) biodiversity data coming from one of the most reliable online information systems: the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We evaluate the completeness of available datasets with respect to the CoML benchmark, along with progresses in understanding spatial–temporal patterns of marine biodiversity in the European Seas in the last decades. Overall, we observe severe biases in available biodiversity data toward the north-western marine regions (particularly around the United Kingdom and the North Sea), the most recent years (with a peak in the number of reported occurrences in the 2010s) and the most conspicuous, abundant, and likely “appealing” taxa (e.g., crustaceans, echinoderms or fish). These biases may hamper research applications, but also global-scale data needs and integrative assessments required to support cost-effective progresses toward global biodiversity conservation. National to international joint efforts aimed at enhancing data acquisition and mobilization from poorly known regions, periods, and taxa are desirable if we aim to address these potential biases for the effective monitoring of marine ecosystems and the evaluation of ongoing impacts on biogeographic patterns and ecosystem functioning and services.

Outcomes of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange Ocean Biogeographic Information System OBIS-Event-Data Workshop on Animal Tagging and Tracking

The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) began in 2000 as the repository for data from the Census of Marine Life. Since that time, OBIS has expanded its goals beyond simply hosting data to supporting more aspects of marine conservation (Pooter et al. 2017). In order to accomplish those goals, the OBIS secretariat in partnership with its European node (EurOBIS) hosted at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ, Belgium), and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE, 23rd session, March 2015, Brugge) established a 2-year pilot project to address a particularly problematic issue that environmental data collected as part of marine biological research were being disassociated from the biological data. OBIS-Event-Data is the solution that was developed from that pilot project, which devised a method for keeping environmental data together with the biological data (Pooter et al. 2017). OBIS is seeking early adopters of the new data standard OBIS-Event-Data from among the marine biodiversity monitoring communities, to further validate the data standard, and develop data products and scientific applications to support the enhancement of Biological and Ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) in the framework of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO BON MBON). After the successful 2-year IODE pilot project OBIS-ENV-DATA, the IOC established a new 2-year IODE pilot project OBIS-Event-Data for Scientific Applications (2017-2019). The OBIS-Event-Data data standard, building on Darwin Core, provides a technical solution for combined biological and environmental data, and incorporates details about sampling methods and effort, including event hierarchy. It also implements standardization of parameters involved in biological, environmental, and sampling details using an international standard controlled vocabulary (British Oceanographic Data Centre Natural Environment Research Council). A workshop organized by IODE/OBIS in April brought together major animal tagging and tracking networks such as the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN), the Animal Telemetry Network (ATN), the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), the European Tracking Network (ETN) and the Acoustic Tracking Array Platform (ATAP) to test the OBIS-Event-Data standard through the development of some data products and science applications. Additionally, this workshop contributes to the further maturation of the GOOS EOV on fish as well as the EOV on birds, mammals and turtles. We will present the outcomes as well as any lessons learned from this workshop on problems, solutions, and applications of using Darwin Core/OBIS-Event-Data for bio-logging data.

A new species of Stilipedidae (Amphipoda: Senticaudata) from the South Mid-Atlantic Ridge

A new species of Alexandrella is herein described based on material from the South Mid-Atlantic Ridge around depths of 4700 m. Samples were collected in the scope of the South MAR ECO (Patterns and Processes of the Ecosystems of the Mid-Atlantic) Project, which was part of the Census of Marine Life (CoML). Until the present study, Alexandrella was restricted to Antarctic and Subantarctic waters, with two species having extended distributions (Kermadec Trench, Australia and New Zealand). This is the first record of Alexandrella in the deep sea Atlantic, outside the Southern Ocean limits.

Marine Invertebrates: Communities at Risk

Our definition of the word ‘animal’ centers on vertebrates, yet 99% of the animals on the planet are invertebrates, about which we know little. In addition, although the Census of Marine Life (COML.org) has recently conducted an extensive audit of marine ecosystems, we still do not understand much about the animals of the seas. Surveys of the best-known ecosystems, in which invertebrate populations often play a key role, show that the invertebrate populations are affected by human impact. Coral animals are the foundation of coral reef systems, which are estimated to contain 30% of the species in the ocean. Physical impact and chemical changes on the water severely damage these reefs, and may lead to the removal of these important habitats. Tiny pteropod molluscs live in huge numbers in the polar seas, and their fragile shells are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification. Their removal would mean that fishes on which we depend would have a hugely diminished food supply. In the North Sea, warming is leading to replacement of colder water copepods by warmer water species which contain less fat. This is having an effect on the birds which eat them, who enrich the otherwise poor land on which they nest. Conversely, the warming of the water and the loss of top predators such as whales and sharks has led to an explosion of the jumbo squid of the Pacific coast of North America. This is positive in the development of a squid fishery, yet negative because the squid eat fish that have been the mainstay of the fishery along that coast. These examples show how invertebrates are key in the oceans, and what might happen when global changes impact them.

Patterns, processes and vulnerability of Southern Ocean benthos: a decadal leap in knowledge and understanding

In the Southern Ocean, that is areas south of the Polar Front, long-term oceanographic cooling, geographic separation, development of isolating current and wind systems, tectonic drift and fluctuation of ice sheets amongst others have resulted in a highly endemic benthic fauna, which is generally adapted to the long-lasting, relatively stable environmental conditions. The Southern Ocean benthic ecosystem has been subject to minimal direct anthropogenic impact (compared to elsewhere) and thus presents unique opportunities to study biodiversity and its responses to environmental change. Since the beginning of the century, research under the Census of Marine Life and International Polar Year initiatives, as well as Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research biology programmes, have considerably advanced our understanding of the Southern Ocean benthos. In this paper, we evaluate recent progress in Southern Ocean benthic research and identify priorities for future research. Intense efforts to sample and describe the benthic fauna, coupled with coordination of information in global databases, have greatly enhanced understanding of the biodiversity and biogeography of the region. Some habitats, such as chemosynthetic systems, have been sampled for the first time, while application of new technologies and methods are yielding new insights into ecosystem structure and function. These advances have also highlighted important research gaps, notably the likely consequences of climate change. In a time of potentially pivotal environmental change, one of the greatest challenges is to balance conservation with increasing demands on the Southern Ocean’s natural resources and services. In this context, the characterization of Southern Ocean biodiversity is an urgent priority requiring timely and accurate species identifications, application of standardized sampling and reporting procedures, as well as cooperation between disciplines and nations.

Understanding life together: A brief history of collaboration in biology

The history of science shows a shift from single-investigator ‘little science’ to increasingly large, expensive, multinational, interdisciplinary and interdependent ‘big science’. In physics and allied fields this shift has been well documented, but the rise of collaboration in the life sciences and its effect on scientific work and knowledge has received little attention. Research in biology exhibits different historical trajectories and organisation of collaboration in field and laboratory – differences still visible in contemporary collaborations such as the Census of Marine Life and the Human Genome Project. We employ these case studies as strategic exemplars, supplemented with existing research on collaboration in biology, to expose the different motives, organisational forms and social dynamics underpinning contemporary large-scale collaborations in biology and their relations to historical patterns of collaboration in the life sciences. We find the interaction between research subject, research approach as well as research organisation influencing collaboration patterns and the work of scientists.

From darwin to the census of marine life: marine biology as big science.

With the development of the Human Genome Project, a heated debate emerged on biology becoming ‘big science’. However, biology already has a long tradition of collaboration, as natural historians were part of the first collective scientific efforts: exploring the variety of life on earth. Such mappings of life still continue today, and if field biology is gradually becoming an important subject of studies into big science, research into life in the world's oceans is not taken into account yet. This paper therefore explores marine biology as big science, presenting the historical development of marine research towards the international ‘Census of Marine Life’ (CoML) making an inventory of life in the world's oceans. Discussing various aspects of collaboration – including size, internationalisation, research practice, technological developments, application, and public communication – I will ask if CoML still resembles traditional collaborations to collect life. While showing both continuity and change, I will argue that marine biology is a form of natural history: a specific way of working together in biology that has transformed substantially in interaction with recent developments in the life sciences and society. As a result, the paper does not only give an overview of transformations towards large scale research in marine biology, but also shines a new light on big biology, suggesting new ways to deepen the understanding of collaboration in the life sciences by distinguishing between different ‘collective ways of knowing’.

Status of Marine Biodiversity of the China Seas

China's seas cover nearly 5 million square kilometers extending from the tropical to the temperate climate zones and bordering on 32,000 km of coastline, including islands. Comprehensive systematic study of the marine biodiversity within this region began in the early 1950s with the establishment of the Qingdao Marine Biological Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since that time scientists have carried out intensive multidisciplinary research on marine life in the China seas and have recorded 22,629 species belonging to 46 phyla. The marine flora and fauna of the China seas are characterized by high biodiversity, including tropical and subtropical elements of the Indo-West Pacific warm-water fauna in the South and East China seas, and temperate elements of North Pacific temperate fauna mainly in the Yellow Sea. The southern South China Sea fauna is characterized by typical tropical elements paralleled with the Philippine-New Guinea-Indonesia Coral triangle typical tropical faunal center.This paper summarizes advances in studies of marine biodiversity in China's seas and discusses current research mainly on characteristics and changes in marine biodiversity, including the monitoring, assessment, and conservation of endangered species and particularly the strengthening of effective management. Studies of (1) a tidal flat in a semi-enclosed embayment, (2) the impact of global climate change on a cold-water ecosystem, (3) coral reefs of Hainan Island and Xisha-Nansha atolls, (4) mangrove forests of the South China Sea, (5) a threatened seagrass field, and (6) an example of stock enhancement practices of the Chinese shrimp fishery are briefly introduced. Besides the overexploitation of living resources (more than 12.4 million tons yielded in 2007), the major threat to the biodiversity of the China seas is environmental deterioration (pollution, coastal construction), particularly in the brackish waters of estuarine environments, which are characterized by high productivity and represent spawning and nursery areas for several economically important species. In the long term, climate change is also a major threat. Finally, challenges in marine biodiversity studies are briefly discussed along with suggestions to strengthen the field. Since 2004, China has participated in the Census of Marine Life, through which advances in the study of zooplankton and zoobenthos biodiversity were finally summarized.

Onshore–offshore movement of jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) on the continental shelf

Jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) have greatly extended their range in the California Current System, where they forage on a variety of ecologically and economically important species that inhabit both coastal and offshore mesopelagic regions. Swimming abilities and behavior are important factors in assessing the impacts of this range expansion, particularly in regard to foraging in conjunction with onshore–offshore movement over the continental shelf. Here we describe a study of horizontal movements by jumbo squid along and across the continental shelf off Washington, USA, using acoustic tags in association with the Census of Marine Life's Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Program (POST) receiver arrays. We detected frequent movements along the shelf break, movement onto the shelf at night, and no evidence of movement as a cohesive school. Our results demonstrate feasibility of using acoustic tags and arrays to document horizontal movements of jumbo squid along and across the continental shelf. This is important in order to determine how those movements overlap with those of other ecologically and commercially important fish species.

Book review: Census of marine life

news and update ISSN 1948‐6596 book review Census of marine life Life in the World’s Oceans: Diversity, Distribution and Abundance, ed. by Alasdair D. McIntyre Wiley‐Blackwell, October 2010, 384 pp.ISBN: 978‐1‐4051‐9297‐2 Price: £120 / € 144 (Hardcover) http://www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell This is a book about which superlatives are needed. It contains 17 chapters which summarise results to date in the Census of Marine Life, which as a bald statement perhaps under‐emphasises the important point that these chapters are in‐ valuable reviews of knowledge about a very large programme and about widely different aspects of the ocean’s life. This particular programme has been in progress for a decade at least, depending on which species groups are referred to, but which started mostly in the early 1990s following increasing concerns about loss of diversity in the oceans of the world. The book itself is beautifully produced and is in colour throughout, containing innumerable clear maps, which is especially important for such a subject. The graphics for the volume have added much to its attractiveness, value and to its ability to convey biogeographic and biodiversity informa‐ tion to a very wide readership. This, of course, is the whole point of a summary or of a review, es‐ pecially a collected volume of such reviews, but with printing costs of colour such effective use is too commonly sacrificed by the use of much less clear and less communicative black and white im‐ ages. It seems clear that if books are to retain a place in a pdf world, then colour in such volumes is essential, and when a collection of highly illus‐ trated articles like this is included in one volume, its success is surely assured. The publishers too are to be complimented in this case. The chapters start with an introduction by Fred Grassle, one of the pioneers of marine biodi‐ versity studies, followed by 17 chapters (by a total of about 140 authors) which systematically review different aspects of marine biodiversity, by region and by both pelagic and benthic habitat, including that of the very deep ocean. Without listing all the chapters, the different parts are collected into several parts: Oceans Past, Oceans Present – Geo‐ graphic Realms, Oceans Present – Global Distribu‐ tions, Oceans Present – Animal Movements, Oceans Future and, finally, Using the Data. None of the component chapters slip from providing very useful, well‐summarised and informative in‐ formation on themes connected with oceanic di‐ versity. They also manage to include large num‐ bers of photographs illustrating the wide range of biodiversity that exists. Perhaps microbial diver‐ sity is under‐represented, microbes contributing as they do some 90% of oceanic biomass. How‐ ever, this is a subject whose literature I’m sure will explode in the next decade as we humans realise more and more that, whatever the interest, ap‐ peal and observability of macro life are to us, macro‐species are just one rather small offshoot of Earth’s life as it has existed over billions of years. This volume is of great value to those of us whose research has been necessarily focussed on particular aspects so that we feel we are losing the battle to keep abreast of all these innumer‐ able findings in so many other related marine biol‐ ogy disciplines. This book is, quite simply, very good. It is a pity it is £120 which means it is mostly going to be confined to libraries, rather than be used in countless private homes and office shelves, especially of younger researchers. It will be a benchmark for several years. Charles Sheppard Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, UK e‐mail: charles.sheppard@warwick.ac.uk http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/ people/csheppard/ Edited by Markus Eichhorn © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 2.4, 2011

Book review: A comprehensive foundation for the application of biogeography to conservation

ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update Woodroffe, C.D. (1992). Mangrove sediments and geo‐ morphology. In: Tropical mangrove ecosystems (ed. by A.I. Robertson and D.M. Alongi), pp.7– 41. American Geophysical Union, Washington. Edited by Markus Eichhorn book review A comprehensive foundation for the application of biogeogra‐ phy to conservation Conservation biogeography, by Richard J. Ladle and Robert J. Whittaker (editors) 2011, Blackwell Publishing, 301 pp. ISBN: 9781444335033 Price: £95 (Hardback) / £34.95 (Paperback); http://eu.wiley.com/ It is becoming increasingly clear that the diversity of plant and animal species in the world is con‐ tinuing to decline in spite of ambitious targets set by governments to prevent this (Butchart et al. 2010). It is also becoming evident that the contin‐ ued functioning of ecosystems depends on this diversity (Isbell et al. 2011). In order to conserve what is left of biodiversity, it is crucial that we un‐ derstand the diversity of life and how it is distrib‐ uted across the biomes and ecosystems of the world. Since understanding the distribution of bio‐ diversity is a central tenet of biogeography, it seems obvious that the field of biogeography should be of central importance in conservation. In this volume, Richard Ladle and Robert Whittaker bring together chapters by a number of biogeographers to summarise progress to date in applying the principles of biogeography to conser‐ vation and to identify areas where there is still work to be done. The book is a comprehensive but digestible summary of the field of conservation biogeography and should make essential reading, not only for the students at whom it is primarily aimed, but also for more experienced scientists. The editors profess at the outset that the aim was to achieve a degree of coherence among the chapters, an aim that is achieved remarkably well to give a very coherent text. The first section of the book provides a brief but interesting history of the conservation move‐ ment and the contrasting values held by different sectors of this movement (Chapters 2 and 3), as well as some background to the field of conserva‐ tion biogeography (Chapter 1). A distinction is made between approaches that focus on the com‐ position of biological communities and those that focus on ecosystem function through an under‐ standing of ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling (p. 31). An interesting and growing field in ecology, which receives little attention in the book, uses the functional traits of species to ex‐ plain the link between the composition of biologi‐ cal communities and the function of the ecosys‐ tems that contain them. Functional traits – such as body mass, diet, habitat affinity and development mode of animals, and height and photosynthetic pathway of plants – can help explain how species contribute to the processes underlying the func‐ tioning of ecosystems and can also help in predict‐ ing how ecosystems will respond to environ‐ mental change (McGill et al. 2006). The second section reviews our current un‐ derstanding of the distribution of biodiversity, summarises the history of the global protected areas network and describes the methods avail‐ able for more systematically representing biodi‐ versity in future extensions to this network. There is a strong terrestrial focus here, indeed through‐ out the entirety of the book, which the authors acknowledge and which is owing to a less com‐ plete understanding of the distribution of diversity in the oceans and in freshwater habitats. It is worth noting, though, that the Census of Marine Life, an ambitious $650 million project that fin‐ ished recently, has made huge progress towards understanding the biogeography of the oceans frontiers of biogeography 3.3, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society

Book review: Census of marine life

book review: Census of marine life

Science priorities for seamounts: research links to conservation and management.

Seamounts shape the topography of all ocean basins and can be hotspots of biological activity in the deep sea. The Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CenSeam) was a field program that examined seamounts as part of the global Census of Marine Life (CoML) initiative from 2005 to 2010. CenSeam progressed seamount science by collating historical data, collecting new data, undertaking regional and global analyses of seamount biodiversity, mapping species and habitat distributions, challenging established paradigms of seamount ecology, developing new hypotheses, and documenting the impacts of human activities on seamounts. However, because of the large number of seamounts globally, much about the structure, function and connectivity of seamount ecosystems remains unexplored and unknown. Continual, and potentially increasing, threats to seamount resources from fishing and seabed mining are creating a pressing demand for research to inform conservation and management strategies. To meet this need, intensive science effort in the following areas will be needed: 1) Improved physical and biological data; of particular importance is information on seamount location, physical characteristics (e.g. habitat heterogeneity and complexity), more complete and intensive biodiversity inventories, and increased understanding of seamount connectivity and faunal dispersal; 2) New human impact data; these shall encompass better studies on the effects of human activities on seamount ecosystems, as well as monitoring long-term changes in seamount assemblages following impacts (e.g. recovery); 3) Global data repositories; there is a pressing need for more comprehensive fisheries catch and effort data, especially on the high seas, and compilation or maintenance of geological and biodiversity databases that underpin regional and global analyses; 4) Application of support tools in a data-poor environment; conservation and management will have to increasingly rely on predictive modelling techniques, critical evaluation of environmental surrogates as faunal “proxies”, and ecological risk assessment.

Call for a Census of Soil Invertebrates (CoSI)

A case is argued for urgent reappraisal of biodiversity of soils in order to mitigate their rapid global decline (MEA). A first step is to compile a “stock inventory” of soil fauna thought to number around 210,000 species. Basic knowledge is yet wanting and even earthworms are poorly known despite being the major component as well as key “environmental-engineers” and vital links in all terrestrial food webs (including in waterways, hence their excellence yet trivial use as bait). That biodiversity of earthworms is disproportionately underappreciated is surprising as, with 10,000 already named and many more expected, they are no less species-rich than marine polychaetes, for example, that number ca. 8,000 valid taxa. A model for CoSI is the 10 yr, $1 billion global Census of Marine Life (CoML) that concluded with 250,000 total ocean taxa, but since 2 million species are already catalogued and estimates of diversity are of 10 million, this represents 12.5% of described species and just 2.5% of a probable total. Even claims that oceans occupy two thirds of the planet overlooks that land is hilly and the relative surface areas are perhaps 50:50. Socio-economic arguments flounder in context of 99% of the total worldwide human food supply produced on land, whereas oceans and other aquatic ecosystems provide a paltry 0.6% (FAO). Thus it seems timely and appropriate to advocate a sea change to firmly ground eco-taxonomic studies on our diminishing soils that support all life on Earth and, via runoff, provision or pollute the oceans too.

Progress of marine biodiversity studies in China seas

Efforts have been made by scientists studying on the taxonomy, biogeography and biodiversity in China seas since 1950, the establishment of Qingdao Marine Biological Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Over 1,000 papers and 200 volumes of monographs have been published, of which more than 47 volumes are Fauna Sinica ― Invertebrata (27 volumes on marine biota), 11 volumes of Fauna Sinica ― Vertebrata are on fishes, and 8 volumes are Flora Algarum Marinarum Sinicarum. Results of studies on biodiversity in whole China seas were summarized in Marine Species and Their Distributions in China’s Seas’ (1994) and Checklist of Marine Biota of China Seas (2008). In the latter volume, new taxonomic results up to 2007 were added, and a total of 22,629 marine species were recorded, with an increase of 5,118 species compared with those reported in 1994. So far, the biodiversity of China seas is high. The results of “Shelf Environment and Bio-resources Survey 1997–2000” and those of “Endangered Species Assessment 第 6期 刘瑞玉: 中国海物种多样性研究进展 615 Project” (2000–2004) published in China Species Red List vols.1, 3, 2A, 2B (2004, 2005 and 2009) revealed that under the impacts of global climate change and anthropogenic activities, the biodiversity and bio-resources have seriously declined, the number of endangered species increased, and some major populations collapsed. China joined the World Marine Biodiversity Project “Census of Marine Life” (CoML) in 2004. In the project “Census of Marine Zooplankton”, ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity characteristics had been investigated; and in a survey cruise from Arctic to Antarctic through Equator, 2000 zooplankton samples were taken by R/V “Science I” of Institute of Oceanology, CAS, and 260 DNA barcoding data have been obtained. For the CoML “NRIC: Synthesis Program”, the China Collection Report entitled “Status of marine biodiversity study in China seas” had been drafted and submitted to PLoS ONE for publication, the progress of China’s marine biodiversity and biogeography studies has been reviewed by the present author. To strengthen the conservation of biodiversity and endangered species, 33+21 National Marine Nature Reserves and 7 National Marine Parks have been established up to date. Problems in marine biodiversity study and conservation in China seas are discussed and the following suggestions are put forward: (1) To strengthen the collection of materials (specimens) for marine biodiversity study, a biodiversity background value survey and deep sea collection cruises should be carried out to discover new species and reveal the past, present, and to predict the future trends of major species and biological communities; (2) Carrying on biodiversity monitoring survey in various habitats around the country, to understand the processes and mechanisms of global climate change and human activities impacting biodiversity; (3) Strengthening basic research on change in marine biodiversity, particular the assessment and conservation of biodiversity and endangered species for sustainable development; (4) Minimizing the disparity between the study and conservation of marine and terrestrial (including freshwater) biodiversities, and effective management; and (5) Training young scientists, particularly taxonomists to study different biotic groups systematically.

Ten years accomplishment of Census of Marine Life

Ten years accomplishment of Census of Marine Life

Using DNA Barcoding and Standardized Sampling to Compare Geographic and Habitat Differentiation of Crustaceans: A Hawaiian Islands Example

Recently, the Census of Marine Life has explored methods to assess coral reef diversity by combining standardized sampling (to permit comparison across sites) with molecular techniques (to make rapid counts of species possible). To date, this approach has been applied across geographically broad scales (seven sites spanning the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans), focusing on similar habitats at all sites (10–12 m forereef). Here we examine crustacean spatial diversity patterns for a single atoll, comparing results for four sites (comprising forereef, backreef, and lagoon habitats) at French Frigate Shoals (FFS), Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii, USA, within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The Bray-Curtis index of similarity across these habitats at FFS was the same or greater than the similarity between similar habitats on Heron Island and Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef and much greater than similarity between more widely separated localities in the Indo-Pacific Ocean (e.g., Ningaloo, Moorea, French Polynesia or the Line Islands). These results imply that, at least for shallow reefs, sampling multiple locations versus sampling multiple habitats within a site maximizes the rate at which we can converge on the best global estimate of coral reef biodiversity.

Around the World

In science news around the world this week, U.S. courts have backed gene patents and human embryonic stem cells, the Census of Marine Life has won Japan's International Cosmos Prize, U.K. primate research was deemed to be justified, hidden epidemics of HIV were found to affect as many as 28% of members of some groups of men who have sex with men in the Middle East and North Africa, and the European Anti-Fraud Office is investigating alleged conflicts of interest at the European Medicines Agency in London.

Marine Census Scrambles to Fund a Second Phase With Expanded Focus

The just-completed Census of Marine Life may not be able to carry out its proposed new research agenda, called "Life in a Changing Ocean," due to lack of funding.

Eurekometrics: Analyzing the Nature of Discovery

Eurekometrics: Analyzing the Nature of Discovery