Great Barrier Reef Expeditions Yields 100's New Species & Clues to Biodiversity Threats

Hundreds of new animal species have been discovered by a team of international researchers affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life exploring waters off  Lizard and Heron Islands on the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef  off northwestern Australia. The marine expedition was the first scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals, named octocorals for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp.   

The explorers today released some initial results and stunning images from their landmark four-year effort to record the diversity of life in and around Australia’s renowned reefs.

The discoveries included: about 300 soft coral species, up to half of them thought to be new to science;
dozens of small crustacean species -- and potentially one or more families of species – likewise thought unknown to science; a rarely sampled amphipod of the family Maxillipiidae, featuring a bizarre whip-like back leg about three times the size of its body; a new species of tanaid crustaceans, shrimp-like animals, some with claws longer than their bodies; the rare Cassiopeia jellyfish, photographed upside down on the ocean floor, tentacles waving in the water column -- a posture that enables symbiotic algae living in its tentacles to capture sunlight for photosynthesis; and scores of tiny amphipod crustaceans – insects of the marine world – of which an estimated 40 to 60% will be formally described for the first time.

Preparing for future discoveries, the divers pegged several layered plastic structures – likened to empty doll houses – for marine life to colonize on the ocean floor at Lizard and Heron Islands.   Creatures that move into these Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS), which provide shelter designed to appeal to a variety of sea life, will be collected over the next one to three years. 

“Corals face threats ranging from ocean acidification, pollution, and warming to overfishing and starfish outbreaks,” says Dr. Ian Poiner, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), which led the research.  “Only by establishing a baseline of biodiversity and following through with later censuses can people know the impact of those threats and find clues to mitigate them.”

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Source: http://www.coml.org/embargo/creefs2008.htm