About Census of Marine Zooplankton
The Census of Marine Zooplankton includes scientists, students and others interested in zooplankton from around the world who are working toward a taxonomically comprehensive assessment of biodiversity of animal plankton throughout the world ocean, a field project of the Census of Marine Life (see www.CoML.org).
We are studying the 7,000 described species in 15 phyla that comprise the holozooplankton – animals that drift with ocean currents throughout their lives.
We are determining a DNA barcode (short DNA sequence for species identification) for each species.
We sponsor activities such as taxonomic training workshops, sponsors student and researcher visits to CMarZ laboratories.
We maintain a distributed data system of biological and physical information from CMarZ related cruises.
We provide image galleries of living plankton.
Our goal by 2010:
To produce a global assessment of marine zooplankton biodiversity, including accurate and complete information on species diversity, biomass, biogeographical distribution and genetic diversity.