The Census of Marine Life on Seamounts: results from a global science program
Abstract
CenSeam (a Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts) is a network of more than 500 scientists, policy makers and conservationists around the world. These participants are collaborating to increase our understanding of the factors driving seamount community composition and diversity, such that we can better understand and manage the effects of human activities. The major scientific outcomes of the CenSeam community include the findings that 1) Seamount community composition is often similar to surrounding habitats; however, community structure can be different. 2) Contrary to conventional wisdom, few seamounts follow island biogeography predictions. 3) Seamounts can support a higher benthic biomass than surrounding habitats. 4) Seamounts can support species and communities new to science, and represent range extensions for known species, which are being described from CenSeam voyages. 5) For the first time, the extent of the vulnerability and risk to seamount benthic communities from fishing has been quantified. 6) Whilst long assumed, CenSeam researchers have demonstrated that seamount communities are disturbed by fishing and are slow to recover. And 7) Seamounts might act as repositories of biodiversity during future periods of extreme environmental change, as they have likely done in the past. The major products of Censeam include 1) a book synthesizing seamount knowledge: Seamounts: Ecology, Fisheries and Conservation (from Blackwell Publishing); 2) a recent review of the structure and function of seamount benthic communities, human impacts, and seamount management and conservation (Ann Rev Mar Sci); 3) hundreds of scientific publications, including Special Issues in Marine Ecology and Oceanography (in collaboration with the Seamount Biogeogsciences Network), and a Special Collection in PLoSONE; 4) guidance documents and formal advising for seamount management communities, including the United Nations Environment Program, International Seabed Authority, Convention on Biological Diversity, and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations; 5) protocols manuals and guides to facilitate standardization of methodology, including a Wiley Blackwell book, Biological Sampling in the Deep-Sea, due to be published 2011; and 6) SeamountsOnline, a central database of global seamount data (5500 taxa from 258 seamounts) to support research and management (seamounts.sdsc.edu). CenSeam has also had Societal impacts. It has fostered collaborative research to expand global seamount sampling to previously understudied regions. It has increased public awareness of seamounts and the wider deep-sea, for example through expedition web logs to share the experiences of researchers at sea. And CenSeam has provided quality science to inform the management of commercial fisheries and mining, such as a practical seamount classification scheme for protected area planning, and maps of predicted coral habitat suitability.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMOS51C1340S
- Keywords:
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- 0410 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Biodiversity;
- 0439 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- 4804 OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL / Benthic processes;
- benthos;
- 4815 OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL / Ecosystems;
- structure;
- dynamics;
- and modeling