From seabed to World Wide Web: An overview of marine zoological sampling, data processing and potential production of digital marine Faunas

Introduction: Marine environments cover approximately 70% of the earth’s surface and are extremely diverse. They are three-dimensional, interconnected and undergo constant water movement, hence sampling the same area twice can yield radically different results. Many marine habitats are often extremely inaccessible and may, in extreme cases, be more than 6km below the sea surface. Only in a few cases are researchers actually able to see the area being sampled. Sampling methods are, therefore, quite different from those used in terrestrial biology. Our knowledge of marine fauna has undoubtedly been enhanced by the Census of Marine Life (CoML). CoML was a 10-year programme from 2000 to 2010 whose mission was to ‘to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the world’s oceans’ (Ausubel, 2001). CoML comprised 17 individual programmes, all but four of which had a fieldwork element. Although perhaps there was a bias toward benthic sampling of the oceans, all habitats were explored by at least one of the component programmes. All of these programmes but one had dedicated cruises, reflecting that it is not possible to sample marine fauna without a ship, with the exception of near-shore habitats. It could be argued that one reason that a large part of marine research takes place in nearshore habitats is because of their accessibility. It follows, however, that the least documented habitats and therefore those in greatest need of taxonomic treatment are the more remote, less accessible, offshore habitats. Only a tiny proportion of the seafloor and the open ocean has ever been sampled.