Census of Marine Life - Census Program

Census Program

The Census consists of three major component themes organized around the questions:

1. What has lived in the oceans?
2. What does live in the oceans?
3. What will live in the oceans?

Census researchers undertook the task of constructing the history of marine animal populations since human predation became important, roughly the last 500 years. This program component is the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP).

The largest component of the Census involved investigating what now lives in the world's oceans through 14 field projects. Each sampled the biota in one of six realms of the global oceans using a range of technologies. Details of these field projects are provided below.

Forecasting what will live in the oceans involves modeling and simulation. This component program was the Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP). This group focused on integrating data from different sources and creating statistical and analytical tools to make predictions for marine populations and ecosystems.

The global initiative required a state-of-the-art data assimilation framework, and this effort, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), forms the fourth component program of the Census. The vision is that users will be able to click on maps of the oceans on their laptop or desktop anywhere in the world and bring up Census data on what is reported to live in the ocean zone of interest. At the end of 2010, OBIS contained more than 30 million records. OBIS is designed to make sharing data easy, helping to improve understanding of the patterns and processes that govern marine life.