1998 Year of the Ocean Ocean Living Resources 



INTRODUCTION 



Humans have sailed the seas for centuries, but considered anything beneath the surface or 

 beyond the horizon to be "incognito," and to be labeled as dangerous: Here be dragons. While 

 our modem perspective may lead us to scoff at the early map makers, even today many maps 

 treat the ocean as essentially flat, blue, empty space between the continents — featureless and 

 devoid of interest. Despite quantum leaps in scientific knowledge about the ocean, many 

 Americans still view the ocean as limitless, vast, and unknowable. According to recent survey 

 research, however, citizen awareness of the value of ocean resources and the threats they face is 

 growing (The Mellman Group, 1997). As worldwide observance of the Year of the Ocean 

 proceeds, it is worth taking stock of existing knowledge about the ocean — and the health and 

 abundance of its living resources— in order to be better able to chart a course for the future. 



Life on earth arose from the ocean, and living marine resources continue to provide 

 essential ecosystem services on which all life depends. Only in recent years has the extent to 

 which the ocean is host to a vast diversity of species and ecosystems been recognized. Even 

 though no "dragons" have been found, exploration of the ocean, which covers nearly three- 

 fourths of the planet, has revealed creatures even more unusual, and living resources even more 

 valuable, than could have been imagined by our ancestors. Only in the last 20 years have the seas 

 begun to yield the secrets of the deep ocean floor. For example, the deep ocean is home to 

 communities of organisms whose productivity is based on chemosynthesis instead of 

 photosynthesis, the latter being the process by which most plant life on the earth and in the sea 

 converts sunlight into useable biological energy. Other whole new ecosystems have been 

 discovered in the ocean in recent years, and the vast majority of species remain to be discovered. 

 Although the ocean may have fewer species overall than terrestrial envirormients, the array 

 covers a much higher degree of diversity at higher taxonomic levels. All but one of the several 

 dozen known animal phyla are represented in the ocean, while only about one half occur on 

 land.' 



Providing humanity with food, economic benefits, and recreation, living marine resources 

 represent a treasure for current and future generations. These resources range from the 

 tremendously productive phytoplankton, which help maintain atmospheric gas balances, 

 sequester carbon, and form the base of many marine food chains, to corals, which build reefs that 

 protect coastlines and create the most biologically diverse ecosystems; and from pelagic fishes 

 upon which many of the world's commercial fisheries depend, to deep sea hydrothermal vent 

 communities with unique adaptations that may provide important resources for future 

 biotechnology breakthroughs (see Box 1). 



'Taxonomy is the system used by biologists to describe and classify organisms. The so-called taxonomic pyramid is divided into 

 kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. A whole new Kingdom, the Archaea, was discovered in deep sea 

 hydrothermal vents. The Archaea are as different from bacteria as bacteria are from plants and animals. 



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