Guest guest Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 ***************************Advertisement*************************** eCentral - Your Entertainment Guide http://www.star-ecentral.com ***************************************************************** This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my) URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2003/9/16/features/6261992 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday September 16, 2003 Counting marine life <b>Scientists are starting a 10-year census of the seas and marine life increasingly beleaguered by pollution, overfishing and climate change, writes JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA.</b> BRENDA Konar shoots an anxious glance over her shoulder but keeps chiselling. The Pacific Ocean hasn & #8217;t gone away. In fact, it & #8217;s gaining on her. Wedged between slimy boulders, the marine biologist hacks at the crusty stuff clinging to the ragged shoreline of the Kenai Peninsula. Frigid seawater seeps through the duct tape patch on her rubber waders. Her knuckles bleed. Soon, the world & #8217;s second-largest tides will submerge this speck called Cohen & #8217;s Island, located 400km south-west of Anchorage. “We & #8217;re in so much trouble,” Konar mutters into the wind and rain. Halfway around the world, Mike Vecchione shudders as Russian deckhands slap the metal hull of his tiny submarine. In any language, that echo means “Good to go!” To where? Three slow, dark kilometres to the bottom of the North Atlantic, to a spot disconcertingly named the “Charley Gibbs Fracture Zone”. The pressure down there could crumple a truck. The Smithsonian biologist curls on a cushion as a crane dangles his vessel over the ocean like a drip from a faucet. “I can & #8217;t believe I & #8217;m doing this,” he whispers. From pole to pole, in virtually every ocean, scientists from two dozen nations are wrapping up preliminary field studies. Together the studies will serve as the foundation for the most extensive project of its kind & #8211; the Census of Marine Life. The census seeks a fundamental understanding of all life that relies on the largely unexplored seas covering most of Earth, increasingly beleaguered by pollution, overfishing and climate change. This unprecedented field guide to millions of species is supposed to be completed in 10 years. It could cost as much as US$1bil (RM3.8bil), much of it funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and governments. It & #8217;s a staggering budget. But it & #8217;s a fraction of the US$55bil (RM209bil) seafood trade or what it costs to clean up a major oil spill. For sheer grandiosity, the census rivals the Digital Sky Map, another Sloan project seeking to pinpoint 100 million celestial objects in one-quarter of the entire night sky. In some ways, the marine census is even more ambitious. Certainly, it & #8217;s riskier. Biologists must contend with the same hazards that sailors have been dodging since Odysseus incurred Poseidon & #8217;s wrath. That means hurricanes, sharks, icebergs, shoals and riptides as well as sinking boats and busted equipment. The census is divided into six topics. Besides Pacific shorelines and the North Atlantic sea floor, scientists are examining the Gulf of Maine, hydrothermal vents, coastal salmon runs and the worldwide habits of large fish and mammals. That tsunami of raw information will go into an open database that researchers everywhere can use, similar to the Human Genome Project. “We & #8217;re asking scientists to think beyond their own beach,” says Ronald O & #8217;Dor, a Nova Scotia squid expert who has moved to Washington to coordinate the census. “We don & #8217;t know what we & #8217;ll find. We don & #8217;t even know what we are looking for.” Scientists expect the census will shed new light on Earth & #8217;s fundamental processes, like evolution and climate. But others expect it will serve more practical purposes. Environmentalists will use it to identify threatened species and locations for marine parks. Fishing and shipping interests believe the observations will make them more efficient & #8211; and profitable. And bio-prospectors hope the census will yield a bounty of new materials and compounds, ranging from medicines to industrial adhesives. The census begins in earnest at a time when the ocean & #8217;s bounty suddenly appears alarmingly skimpy. Large fish have been depleted by 90% since World War II, and new fishing grounds are finished within 15 years by industrial fleets that use sonar, spotting planes and nets stretching 80km. Their methods do not distinguish between adults and babies, and they unintentionally kill millions of other creatures, including 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises per day. Often, undersea habitats are destroyed, permanently dimming recovery hopes. Yet until the census & #8217; preliminary studies, nobody could describe with certainty where fish go or the places they live. “People think of space being the final frontier, but most of our planet is very poorly known,” Vecchione says. “You can & #8217;t protect something that you don & #8217;t understand and you can & #8217;t use something that you haven & #8217;t inventoried.” So far, the most startling results have come from the fish-taggers. Biologists attach digital instruments to the backs of the oceans & #8217; most athletic swimmers and fearsome hunters. Known collectively as pelagics, these sharks, tuna, humpback whales, elephant seals, Humboldt squid, even sea turtles are tracked by satellite on their mysterious journeys. Early data from 700 Atlantic bluefin tuna demonstrate that fish from different regions mingle freely during migrations ranging from the Texas coast to the Mediterranean. The results smash assumptions that bluefin populations never mix and that fleets can intensively harvest particular regions, such as the Flemish Cap off Canada, without harming stocks throughout the hemisphere. The stakes are huge. Globally, three million tons of tuna are processed annually. A single bluefin fetches US$175,000 (RM665,000) at Tokyo & #8217;s seafood market. But the bluefin population has been plummeting since the 1980s. International commissions already are using tagging data to establish more restrictive quotas worldwide. Beginning this fall, scientists will begin tracking thousands of additional pelagics to address broader scientific questions, as well as conservation and commercial concerns. Among them: In the vastness of the oceans, does marine life scatter or does it behave similarly to terrestrial life and congregate? Early tagging data suggests some surprising similarities. “There are hints of shared corridors that different animals are using and places they will loiter, like watering holes,” says biologist Randy Kochevar of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tagging also reveals that pelagics are phenomenal divers, giving them a range across environments far greater than land creatures. It raises the question of whether latitude and depth determine species & #8217; distribution as latitude and elevation do on land. For example, you wouldn & #8217;t find an African lion venturing to the Arctic. But early census data shows a bluefin swims at 72kph from the balmy Gulf to icy Newfoundland, and can dive 600m deep in near-freezing water & #8211; all while maintaining a body temperature of 26.6°C. Tags show great white sharks leave California for Hawaii, often diving more than 600m.But none would follow Vecchione nearly 3,000m down to the Charley Gibbs Fracture Zone. Vecchione & #8217;s reconnaissance will keep him busy all winter identifying “mystery animals”. But it & #8217;s bad news for fishing boats that must venture ever further. “The bottom is even rougher than expected,” he reports. “It is not at all trawlable.” In Alaska, shoreline studies by Konar and her research partner, Katrin Iken, wrestle with the opposite problem: too many samples. The ferocious tide peels back Kachemak Bay & #8217;s dreary gray veil to reveal a psychedelic 70s world. The rocky bottom is a lush shag carpet of glistening emerald algae and draperies of rubbery brown kelp. Gold and purple starfish sway like medallions. Clam and oyster shells crunch underfoot like spilled party snacks. The University of Alaska biologists laboriously sample Cohen & #8217;s and Elephant islands in the bay with the help of a dozen students. They have already completed surveys at Kodiak Island, Prince William Sound and the Beaufort Sea above the Arctic Circle. Others will use similar methods to examine shorelines in Russia, Japan, Thailand, Chile and Antarctica. Shorelines are the most dynamic zone of the unknown marine environment. Beaches erode, rivers pump in fresh water and nutrients, storms pound and tides rip. Entire communities of plants and animals can change every metre. Most of the world & #8217;s population and industry are crowded along coastlines, so when catastrophe strikes, those regions suffer the most. Again, high stakes. Exxon spent US$9bil (RM34.2bil) trying to clean 2,400km of coastline after the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound. The shoreline holds great promise, too. Even humble sponges, for example, have yielded anti-cancer compounds while the spines of another have properties that engineers are incorporating in fibre-optic cables. & #8211; AP <p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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