Global Ocean Census

Why in news?

• Ocean Census is the largest programme in history aiming to discover life in our ocean, with the ambitious target of finding at least 100,000 new marine species in its first decade.

About Global Ocean Census:

• Ocean Census is a global collaborative initiative, an open network of science, business, media and civil society organisations joining forces.
• It has been founded by The Nippon Foundation (Japan)  and Nekton (UK)
• The project’s headquarters is in Oxford, UK.
• As part of this network, scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Tree of Life Programme hope to discover more about the DNA of as-yet-unknown species living in the ocean.
• As new organisms are collected for the project, they will be preserved in such a way that they can be sent to Sanger, where we can generate a baseline understanding of their genomes. This will forever more create a record of what that organism’s DNA looks like.

How will the project work?

• Over the coming years, scientists from around the world will embark on dozens of expeditions to the ocean’s biodiversity hotspots to find new life from the surface to full ocean depth.
• Combining vessels from the philanthropic, government and commercial fleets, they will be deploying a combination of advanced subsea technologies with divers, submarines and deep-sea robots.
• Species discovered on expeditions will be sent for high resolution imaging and DNA sequencing in a network of Ocean Census Biodiversity Centres to be established in high, middle, and low-income nations around the world.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Consider the following statements:

1. Ocean Census is a global collaborative initiative, an open network of science, business, media and civil society organisations joining forces.

2. It has been founded by UNEP

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer