Global warming and current overfishing seriously threaten marine life, which is why a group of scientists and researchers has decided to take action on the matter. Determined to find at least 100,000 new marine species in the next decade, professionals have created Ocean Census, an ocean census that will protect the deep-sea ecosystem from extinction.
Building on previous projects, such as the 2010 census of marine life, which eventually discovered 6,000 potential new ocean species, this initiative aims to fill the gaps that exist above the ocean depths. As the census itself has indicated, of the 2.2 million species thought to exist in the oceans, only 240,000 have been analysed.
Professor Alex Rogers, director of the new marine census, says: “We are in a race against time. We have global warming, the ocean is losing oxygen, acidifying and as a result we are losing species. If that process continues then we will face another major extinction in the ocean and we’ll lose huge tracts of the ‘tree of life’ essentially.”
Faced with this threat, the group of scientists intends to make use of new technological advances, including high-resolution underwater imaging, machine learning, and sequencing of DNA contained in seawater, thus helping to accelerate the speed and scale of discovery. of new forms of life.
The Ocean Census project will also have a very important task, that of identifying how marine ecosystems respond to the climate crisis, evaluating how they can adapt to a warmer climate. Spearheaded by the Nippon Foundation and the UK Institute of Marine Research, this initiative is the largest ever program to discover new marine life.
In addition to the new technological advances, the program intends to have the participation of divers, submarines and deep-sea robots, as well as private boats and individuals. Furthermore, all information collected will be freely accessible to scientists, policy makers and the public for non-commercial use.
