For the first time in history, experts from around the world have gathered to speak at length about the life of the oceans at the I World Congress on Marine Biodiversity, which began yesterday in Valencia. It has presented the progress of the project that, in 2000, brought together thousands of scientists from 82 countries with a common goal: to explore the biodiversity of the oceans. Although the species catalog will not be completed until 2010, theMarine Life Census(CoML), as this network is known, has already provided some interesting data. For example, researchers have found evidence that first evidence that a large proportion of the species ofoctopusesaround the world evolved from acommon ancestor still living in the Antarctic. In this same ocean they have been identifiedgiant starfish. And the Pacific has surprised us witha? white shark coffee?Ya “sturgeon park”.
Biologists don’t want to leave anything behind. Because they are exploring from theintertidal zonesshared with humans untildark trenches more than 10,000 meters deepFrom the microscopic plankton of the lit areas of the sea and the sea lions that dive in the depths to the worms that populate the abyssal sediments, from the organisms that live on the changing slopes of seamounts to those that tolerate fiery ocean drains. In other words,5% of the oceans that are regularly visited and 95% whose life remains unexplored.
