By Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct 23 2003 (IPS)

Fish stocks cannot be managed properly because little is known about the ecology of the world’s oceans, scientists from the Census of Marine Life project reported Thursday.

While they cover 70 percent of the Earth, more than 95 percent of the oceans are unknown territory, according to Jesse Ausubel, an environmental scientist at The Rockefeller University in New York City.

That means, for example, that scientists are unable to accurately gauge the impact of climate change on ocean life, points out the first report of the census, the fruit of three years of study.

The census, a 10-year, one-billion-dollar project that includes over 300 scientists from 53 countries, intends to shine light on what lives in oceans and how those organisms interact.

Its first report revealed there are over 15,300 species of marine fish, with the number climbing by three newly discovered species a week.

As many as 5,000 fish species are expected to be found by the conclusion of the project in 2010. Scientists also predict they will discover nearly two million new species of other marine animals and plant life.

But identifying species is just one small part of the overall effort, say researchers. More critical is understanding the ecology or the biological functioning of the oceans.

”We have little idea of what climate change is doing or will do to the biology of the oceans,” Ausubel said.

The same lack of understanding is hindering efforts to manage fish stocks, says David Welsh, a scientist with Canada’s department of fisheries and oceans.

Large-scale changes are occurring in the oceans, from changes in temperatures and currents to the discoveries of fish species, Welsh told IPS.

For instance, when Canada’s east coast cod fishery collapsed, stocks of a number of other species of ground fish also fell. ”Was it over fishing, a change in ocean temperatures or something else?" he asks.

The census is attempting to build a solid base of ecological information that is needed to answer that question and help resolve other pressing fisheries issues, Welsh says.

New hi-tech tools are being employed to collect this data, such as ”acoustical arrays”, which are being deployed on the continental shelf of North America’s west coast.

Fish are implanted with sound-emitting tags about the size of a fingernail that emit an acoustical beep. Receivers positioned on the sea floor pick up those signals, which can then be collected at a central on-shore databank.

For the first time, individual fish – from tiny salmon to blue whales – will be tracked as they swim anywhere on the shelf, from Central America to the Bering Sea.

”The array is an underwater tool like the Hubble Space Telescope in astronomy. It enables us to see into the ocean in a way never before possible,” says Welch.

It is just one of many worldwide projects included in the census. Others are: an investigation into what species live in the Arctic Ocean; what bacterial organisms live off the coast of Chile, and explorations of the abyssal plains -¡ enormous flat areas lying more than 3,000 metres deep.

Abyssal plains are the largest landforms on the planet, covering thousands of square kilometres in the south Atlantic and elsewhere, says Pedro Martínez Arbizu of the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity (DZMB).

Recent explorations of these plains off the coast of Angola have revealed they possess more species per area than in any other known aquatic environment on Earth. The vast majority of these species are tiny worms called nematodes.

Exploring such environments is very difficult and very expensive, so few countries could ever afford it on their own.

Developing nations participating in the census include China, South Africa, India, Mexico and most South American countries.

The census is the first international co-operative approach to studying the entire ocean, says Frederick Grassle, chair of the census’ scientific committee and director of the Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

”More importantly, it begins the first systematic global effort to measure our oceans’ vital signs, and guide what must be done to reverse their decline.”

”This is the start of the first great voyage of discovery of the 21st Century.”

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