The Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ) will address the overarching question:

“What are the patterns of zooplankton biodiversity throughout the world ocean, and how are they generated and maintained?”

CMarZ Overarching question

CMarZ Hypotheses The hypotheses that will guide the design, development, and implementation of

CMarZ include:

• H1. Zooplankton biodiversity differs among biogeographical regimes and provinces, and is related to ecosystem stability and productivity.

• H2. Population genetic continuity among geographic regions is more extensive for deep-sea species than for surface dwelling ones.

• H3. Environmental heterogeneity increases the frequency of endemic and cryptic species.

• H4. High zooplankton biodiversity results in foodwebs with more complex biotic relationships.

• H5. Natural and anthropogenic changes are decreasing endemism and significantly altering biogeographical distributions of marine zooplankton.

• H6. Many zooplankton species occur at low abundances over broad geographical distributions, crossing geological and oceanographic dispersal barriers.

Taxonomic information is essential to analysis of zooplankton (and ocean)

ecology• Community structure and energy flow are not

defined by biomass alone• Species function differently and have different

effects on how ecosystems work• Species are the units of adaptation – the

intersection of genome and environment• Changes in species diversity signal changes in

environment• Baseline biodiversity data needed to asses

effects of anthropogenic and global climate change.

Functional importance of taxonomic structure for marine

ecosystems: • Marine bioinvasions: • Global elemental cycles – carbon pump: • Food web efficiency and stability:• Pelagic speciation models:• Phylogenetic relationships:• Patterns of endemism:• Molecular clocks:• Management of marine ecosystems:• Indicators of ecosystem health:• Fisheries oceanography:

Ecological Analysis: Progress to Date

Majority of CMARZ related projects presented here are ecological in nature

• Biodiversity relative to environment:– Cruise to Sargasso Sea (Wiebe)– Benguela current communities (Verheye)– MAR-ECO (Melle)– Japanese time-series (Sugisaki)– Chinese coastal surveys (Sun)

Trophic structure orHuman interactions…..

– Black & Caspian Seas (Kideys)

– Indonesian reef communities (Cornils)

– Japanese time-series

• Adaptation to seasonal changes…– Antarctic zooplankton

life cycles (Schiel)

• Longer term changes…– Benguela current– Japanese time-series– Inner-space speciation

in Celebes Sea (Madin)

Should CMARZ have a formal role in ecological analysis?

• Are taxonomic goals enough?

• Should CMARZ broaden its role? How?