Life in the World's Oceans: Diversity, Distribution, and Abundance

383 Pages·2010·25.84 MB·English

by  Alasdair McIntyre

Life in the
World’s Oceans
Alasdair D. McIntyre
T he many Census scientists who contributed to this volume dedicate it to the memory of Alasdair McIntyre,
who passed away near its completion. Some of us knew him for many years, while others for only a few,
but we all greatly appreciated his wisdom, wit, and perpetual curiosity. His contributions to marine science
have been many and he was one of the fi rst to propose an international study of marine biodiversity.
Alasdair will be greatly missed.
Life in the
World’s Oceans
Diversity, Distribution, and
Abundance
Edited by
Alasdair D. McIntyre
The University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
This edition fi rst published 2010
© 2010 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s
publishing programme has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientifi c, Technical, and Medical
business to form Wiley-Blackwell.
Registered offi ce
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ,
United Kingdom
Editorial offi ces
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, United Kingdom
2121 State Avenue, Ames, Iowa 50014-8300, USA
For details of our global editorial offi ces, for customer services and for information about how
to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at
www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.
The right of the author to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without
the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in
print may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks,
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated
with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide
accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on
the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If
professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional
should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Life in the world’s oceans : diversity, distribution, and abundance / edited by Alasdair
D. McIntyre.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9297-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Marine animals. 2. Marine
ecology. 3. Biodiversity. 4. Census of Marine Life (Program) 5. Zoological surveys.
6. Oceanography. I. McIntyre, A. D.
QH541.5.S3L54 2010
577.7–dc22
2010005814
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in 9.5 on 12pt Classical Garamond BT by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
Printed in Singapore
1 2010
Contents
CONTENTS
Foreword vii 10 Marine Life in the Arctic 183
Introduction ix 11 Marine Life in the Antarctic 203
Acknowledgments xii
Contributors xiii
PART III Oceans Present – Global
The Scientifi c Steering Committee of the Census of Marine
Life xix Distributions
221
PART I Oceans Past 12 A Global Census of Marine Microbes 223
1
13 A Census of Zooplankton of the Global Ocean 247
1 Marine Animal Populations: A New Look Back in
Time 3
PART IV Oceans Present – Animal
PART II Oceans Present – Geographic Movements 267
Realms
25 14 Tracking Fish Movements and Survival on the
Northeast Pacifi c Shelf 269
2 Surveying Nearshore Biodiversity 27
15 A View of the Ocean from Pacifi c Predators 291
3 Biodiversity Knowledge and its Application in the
Gulf of Maine Area 43
4 Coral Reef Biodiversity 65 PART V Oceans Future 313
5 New Perceptions of Continental Margin
16 The Future of Marine Animal Populations 315
Biodiversity 79
6 Biodiversity Patterns and Processes on the Mid-
PART VI Using the Data
Atlantic Ridge 103 331
7 Life on Seamounts 123
17 Data Integration: The Ocean Biogeographic
8 Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life 139 Information System 333
9 Biogeography, Ecology, and Vulnerability of
Chemosynthetic Ecosystems in the Deep Sea 161 Index 355
v

Foreword
FOREWORD
The Census of Marine Life is about the total richness of It is about sooty shearwaters fl ying Pacifi c latitudes from
the sea: New Zealand to the Bering Sea.
It is about water columns 5,000 meters high.
The Census of Marine Life is the book of oceans’ nature. It is about the planet’ s busiest commute, the nightly rise
This book reports total richness. of life from hundreds of meters deep to feed nearer
the surface in the safety of darkness.
It reports richness of diversity, the richness of what.
It is about circumpolar currents.
It is about kinorhynchs, tardigrades, rotifers, gastrotrichs,
and tantulocarids housed in Arctic polynyas.
This is a book that explores abundance, the richness of
It is about Antarctic actiniarians, pycnogonids, tunicates,
how much.
and holothurians.
It is about the northerly fl owing Kuroshio Current along
It is about the golden V kelp in the Aleutian Islands.
the southern Japanese coast characterized by high
It is about polychaetes, bivalves, and isopods of the
biodiversity but low biomass.
continental margins.
It is about shimmering shoals of herring swirling in
It is about sturgeon and salmon, sea turtles and
numbers beyond counting.
pinnipeds, otters and sirenia.
It is about fi lter feeders.
This is a book about past richness.
It is about radiolaria and hydrozoa.
It is about Greek merchants trading fi sh from the Black
It is about lanternfi shes and pearlfi shes and roundnose
Sea and the Russian rivers to the Greek and later the
grenadiers.
Roman market.
It is about a black, benthopelagic lobate ctenophore and a
It is about the decline of marbled rock cod and mackerel
large pelagic worm with ten long cephalic tentacles.
ice fi sh west of the Antarctic Peninsula.
It is about 10,000 crabs.
This is a book of lost reefs.
It is about 5,000 to 19,000 unique types of bacteria in
each gram of sand.
This is a book about life and death.
It is about Upper Turonian diatoms.
It is about juvenile salmon and adult sturgeon.
It is about immature specimens carrying sperm packages.
This is a book about vastness and deepness. It is about the loneliness of reproductive isolation.
It reports richness of distributions, the richness of where. It is about mass mortality.
It is about the Western and Eastern Pacifi c, and about It is about small dead coral heads.
South American seas. It is about prey fi elds patrolled by marine hunters.
It is about Caribbean, European, and Polar seas and It is about fi delity to birthplace.
Indian and Atlantic oceans.
It is about the abyssal plains and basins beneath half of
This is a book of paradoxes, where extreme is normal and
Earth ’ s surface.
rare is common.
It is about the Porcupine Abyssal Plain.
It is about the canyons of the margins. This is a book of contrasts.
It is about large shallow banks and gravelly shorelines. It is about the cosmopolitan and the local.
It is about Lizard Island and Ningaloo Reef. It is about glaciation and boiling seafl oor geysers where
It is about the architecture of seamounts. metal would melt yet animals live.
It is about ancient assemblages and modern benthos.
This is a book of journeys. It is about swimmers and drifters and sitters.
It is about leatherback turtles tagged on their nesting
beaches in Indonesia crossing Pacifi c longitudes to This is a book of mysteries.
feed off central California. It is about oceanic barriers to gene fl ow.
vii
viii Foreword
It is about trophic subsidies to carnivores. It is a book of blue - water divers.
It is about the immense volume of ocean still unexplored. It is a book where yellow dots are actual observations of
It is about 20 million marine microbes that might remain lionfi sh.
to be described.
It is about cryptic species.
This book reports the known, unknown, and unknowable
It is a book of powerful prostheses.
of the fi rst Census of Marine Life.
It is a book of ships and sledges and gliders and
This book is about the richness of 3.5 billion years.
pyrotags.
It is a book of attached identity cards and different mesh
sizes. Jesse H. Ausubel
It is a book that fi lters a million cubic meters of seawater. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation