Global Observational Needs and Resources for Marine Biodiversity

CANONICO, GABRIELLE; BUTTIGIEG, PIER LUIGI; MONTES, ENRIQUE; MULLER-KARGER, FRANK E.; STEPIEN, CAROL; WRIGHT, DAWN; BENSON, ABIGAIL; HELMUTH, BRIAN; COSTELLO, MARK; SOUSA-PINTO, ISABEL; SAEEDI, HANIEH; NEWTON, JAN; APPELTANS, WARD; BEDNAR?EK, NINA; BODROSSY, LEVENTE; BEST, BENJAMIN D.; BRANDT, ANGELIKA; GOODWIN, KELLY D.; IKEN, KATRIN; MARQUES, ANTONIO C.; MILOSLAVICH, PATRICIA; OSTROWSKI, MARTIN; TURNER, WOODY; ACHTERBERG, ERIC P.; BARRY, TOM; DEFEO, OMAR; BIGATTI, GREGORIO; HENRY, LEA-ANNE; RAMIRO-SÁNCHEZ, BERTA; DURÁN, PABLO; MORATO, TELMO; ROBERTS, J. MURRAY; GARCÍA-ALEGRE, ANA; CUADRADO, MAR SACAU; MURTON, BRAMLEY

FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE

Frontiers Media SA

Año: 2019 vol. 6

2296-7745

The diversity of life in the sea is critical to the health of ocean ecosystems that supportliving resources and therefore essential to the economic, nutritional, recreational, andhealth needs of billions of people. Yet there is evidence that the biodiversity of manymarine habitats is being altered in response to a changing climate and human activity.Understanding this change, and forecasting where changes are likely to occur, requiresmonitoring of organism diversity, distribution, abundance, and health. It requires aminimum of measurements including productivity and ecosystem function, speciescomposition, allelic diversity, and genetic expression. These observations need to becomplemented with metrics of environmental change and socio-economic drivers.However, existing global ocean observing infrastructure and programs often do notexplicitly consider observations of marine biodiversity and associated processes. Mucheffort has focused on physical, chemical and some biogeochemical measurements.Broad partnerships, shared approaches, and best practices are now being organized toimplement an integrated observing system that serves information to resource managersand decision-makers, scientists and educators, from local to global scales. Thisintegrated observing system of ocean life is now possible due to recent developmentsamong satellite, airborne, and in situ sensors in conjunction with increases in informationsystem capability and capacity, along with an improved understanding of marineprocesses represented in new physical, biogeochemical, and biological models.