Scientists discover 100 new marine species in New Zealand
A team of 21 scientists set out on an expedition in February into the largely uncharted waters of Bounty Trough off the coast of New Zealand’s South Island, hoping to find a wealth of new species.
They said the expedition paid off Sunday with the discovery of 100 new species, a number likely to increase, said Alex Rogers, a marine biologist who led the expedition.
“I expect this number to increase as we run more and more samples,” said Dr. Rogers. “I think that number will be in the hundreds instead of just 100.”
Dozens of mollusks, three fish, a shrimp and a cephalopod, a type of predatory mollusk, were among the new species found during the expedition, which was led by Ocean Census, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the global discovery of life in the Ocean, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
One creature that caused “a lot of head scratching” is a star-shaped animal about a centimeter across, but researchers have been unable to identify it, said Dr. Rogers. They think it might be a coral.
It is estimated that more than two million species live in the oceans, but only 10 percent of ocean life is known. Learning about aquatic life is crucial because marine ecosystems perform functions that support life on Earth, such as creating food for billions, storing carbon and regulating the climate, said Dr. Rogers.
“We are dealing with a situation where we know marine life is in decline,” he said. “To try to control human activities and prevent this continued decline, we need to understand the distribution of marine life better than we currently do.”
Ocean Census was founded last year by the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese philanthropic organization, and British-based ocean exploration foundation Nekton. When it started its work, Ocean Census set a goal of at least making finds 100,000 new marine species in a decade.
The group focuses on exploring some of the most under-sampled water bodies.
During the February expedition, researchers first mapped the area with an imaging system and video cameras to check whether it would be safe for their equipment and to ensure there were no vulnerable animal communities that could potentially be harmed.
They then deployed what is known as the Brenke sled, a sampling device with two nets, one close to the seabed and the other one meter above it. As it drags along the bottom, it churns around animals that live close to the seabed. To find larger animals, the researchers used other methods, such as baited nets.
Trawling the depths at 4,800 meters – or about the equivalent of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps – researchers collected 1,791 samples.
Given its depth, Bounty Trough is not of great importance to the fishery and is therefore poorly sampled, said Dr. Rogers. Geologists have done research this area but not biologists.
About 240,000 marine species have been discovered and named worldwide to date, but according to Ocean Census, an average of only 2,200 species are discovered each year.
In many water bodies, scientists still have much to learn, said Dr. Rogers.
“It’s probably the equivalent of a space mission,” he said. “We’re still in the early stages, but the number of species we’ve found in the Bounty Trough really tells us we still have a long way to go when it comes to understanding where to find life in the ocean is.”