| Oceanography > Issues > Archive > Volume 12 > Issue 3 |
1999, Oceanography 12(3):30–32, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1999.09
Toward Remote Species Identification
Author | First Paragraph | Full Article | Citation
Author
Julia K. Parrish | University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
First Paragraph
Census of Marine Life (CoML) is an exploration of biomass and biodiversity. The Remote Species Identification (RSID) workshop concentrated on the latter category by exploring potential technologies to detect and identify marine species without capturing the organism (Table 1). Why is species identification important? Identifying new organisms (assuming they are related to known forms) gives us information about likely evolution, ecology, and physiology. If mapped, (e.g. species distribution) species identification allows us to track range alteration, introduction and extinction, the currency of biodiversity change/loss. If quantified, (e.g. species abundance) identification allows us to track biomass-biodiversity relationships which change as a result of both natural and anthropogenic forces. With regard to marine systems, RSID is useful because large tracts of ocean are inadequately sampled, because it is technically too difficult and/or financially impossible to do so.
Full Article
Citation
Parrish, J.K. 1999. Toward remote species identification. Oceanography 12(3):30–32, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1999.09.