Scientists compile first global atlas of marine plankton

Researchers have compiled the first ever global atlas cataloguing marine plankton to identify where, when, and how much oceanic plankton can be found around the globe.

Washington: A team of international researchers have compiled the first ever global atlas cataloguing marine plankton ranging in size from bacteria to jellyfish, to identify where, when, and how much oceanic plankton can be found around the globe.

The atlas, known as the Marine Ecosystem Biomass Data (MAREDAT), is the first step towards a comprehensive inventory of the marine biota based on counts of individual cells or organisms. It will help researchers better understand marine biodiversity for conservation and monitoring and is the result of collaborations between scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the University of East Anglia, ETH Zurich, University of Manchester, Universite d`Angers and CNRS, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), together with many other scientific institutions around the world. "One of the more surprising findings from the study is that phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass are roughly the same size in the upper ocean. Compare that to more familiar land ecosystems where the biomass of plants greatly exceeds that of animals and it`s pretty illuminating," WHOI Senior Scientist and Marine Chemist Scott Doney, a collaborator on the project, said. The MAREDAT database is open-source and available through a public website. Thus far, it has catalogued about half a million measurements of plankton biomass, which are subdivided into 12 broad plankton groups. Each group has a separate database. The first edition of the MAREDAT global plankton atlas took three years to compile and combines information from half a million data points. The data will have a wide-range of application across ocean and climate science including helping scientists create computer models to predict the impact of climate change and ocean acidification. The atlas is published in the journal Earth System Science Data. ANI