The Census of Marine Zooplankton is a field project of the Census of Marine Life

Census of Marine Life

The Census of Marine Life was a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans...

 that has aimed to produce a global assessment of the species diversity, biomass

Biomass

Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....

, biogeographic distribution, and genetic diversity of more than 7,000 described species of zooplankton

Zooplankton

Zooplankton are heterotrophic plankton. Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton" is derived from the Greek zoon , meaning "animal", and , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter"...

 that drift the ocean currents throughout their lives. CMarZ focuses on the deep sea, under-sampled reg ions, and biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

 hotspots.

Technology plays a great role in CMarZ's research, including the use of integrated morphological

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 and molecular sampling through DNA Barcoding

DNA barcoding

DNA barcoding is a taxonomic method that uses a short genetic marker in an organism's DNA to identify it as belonging to a particular species. It differs from molecular phylogeny in that the main goal is not to determine classification but to identify an unknown sample in terms of a known...

. CMarZ makes its datasets available via the CMarZ Database.

External links

• CMarZ
• http://www.awi.de/en/research/research_divisions/biosciences/marine_animal_ecology/projects/cmarz/