Brilliant Pics of Bizarre Sea Critters

An anonymous reader writes "Today, scientists have announced the completion of the first ever Census of Marine Life. The colossal 10-year effort involved 2,700 researchers from 80 countries. To mark the occasion, Discover's blog 80beats has a photo gallery of some of the most marvelously strange sea creatures photographed in the course of the census. The blog post also explains some of the census's most important findings, including the dramatic decline of many commercially important large marine animals, and troubling new evidence of a decline in the phytoplankton that serves as the base of the marine food chain."

Comments

coml.org images

[slshwtw]

coml.org Image Gallery (since for some reason I can't seem to find where the pictures are on the discover blog)

Already Sladshdotted! Here's a CORAL link

[Announcer]

I'm glad I got this just in time! Here is the CORAL link to this:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com.nyud.net/80beats/2010/10/04/first-marine-census-describes-the-wonders-and-troubles-of-the-seas/

Erm, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not slashdotted. It loads quickly and correctly for me on residential broadband.

Re:How can a "first ever" census...

[Monchanger]

Because it's not a census-wide decline:

including the dramatic decline of many commercially important large marine animals

Re:Census?

[flaming error]

> Isn't a census where you count every member of a population?

No. It's where you count as many as you can, and from that number, estimate the total.

Etymology Latin, from cnsre to assess

Re:Census?

[gstoddart]

Isn't a census where you count every member of a population? Given that you can't really do that for every sea creature aren't they using the term as kind of a misnomer?

I think they know that, but here's their "about" page.

It's as complete as it has even been, and they've been working on it for a decade. I'm sure they know it's not 100% coverage, but they probably need to be able to explain it to lay-people.

Re:How can a "first ever" census...

[calderra]

There have been other attempts to measure certain populations like plankton, so this is not the baseline for this census, but a confirmation when added to other studies that build a picture of a decline over time.

Content is shared with the Encyclopedia of Life

[Chuckles08]

Another great thing about the Census is that much of the information is feeding into the Encyclopedia of Life project (www.eol.org) with the content being shared under a Creative Commons license.