Life in the Fast Lane

Welcome back!

A treasure trove of hundreds of new animal species and corals have been discovered by researchers off 2 islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia. Researchers encountered many strange, new and beautiful sea creatures including scores of amphipods, dozens of small crustacean species, parasitic isopods, soft corals and rare jellyfish, among others.

Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

CReefs researchers conducted the first systematic inventory during recent expeditions to Lizard and Heron Islands on the Great Barrier Reef, and Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, to provide a baseline to gauge future change in these habitats, where scores of wonderful creatures catalogued were thought to be new to science.

Researchers believe between one-third to half of the hundreds of soft corals found are new species.

While the colorful creatures aren’t reef builders, they dominate some areas studied, covering up to 25% of the ocean floor and provide important habitat for other species.

The addition of as many as 150 new species to the global inventory of soft corals is a significant addition to the scientific community — although the creatures are numerous, they’re poorly understood.

Pohls sea urchins found off Lizard Island. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Twisted Nudibranch, Chromodoris elizabethina. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Pteropod jellyfish. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

The explorers released some initial results and stunning images of the water-world of weird and wonderful creatures from their landmark 4-year effort to record the diversity of life in and around Australia’s renowned reefs.

The expeditions affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life help mark the International Year of the Reef and included the first systematic scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals — named octocorals for the 8 tentacles that fringe each polyp.

Lizard tree worm found on Lizard Island. Photo John Huisman / Murdock University

Whale shark, Rhincodon typus. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Dendronepthya soft coral, coral gardens, Lizard Island.
Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Hundreds of new kinds of incredible animal species surprised scientists exploring the Australia waters:

• About 300 soft coral species, up to half of them thought to be new to science
• Dozens of unknown small crustacean species
• A rarely sampled amphipod, featuring a bizarre whip-like back leg about 3 times the size of its body
• New species of tanaid crustaceans — shrimp-like animals, some with claws longer than their bodies
• Beautiful, rare Cassiopeia jellyfish, photographed upside down on the ocean floor waving its tentacles in the water — a posture that enables symbiotic algae living in its tentacles to capture sunlight for photosynthesis
• potentially new “bristle worms,” relatives of leeches and earth worms — up to two-thirds of species found at Lizard Island alone are thought to be undescribed
• Scores of tiny amphipod crustaceans – insects of the marine world — an estimated 40 to 60% will be formally described for the first time

Sabellids – fan worms or “bristle worms,” relatives of leeches and earth worms.
Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Detail of a sabellid, known as a fan worm. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Platoma alga specimen. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

“We were all surprised and excited to find such a large variety of marine life never before described — most notably soft coral, isopods, tanaid crustaceans and worms – and in waters that divers access easily and regularly.” said Dr. Caley, Principal Research Scientist at AIMS and co-leader of CoML’s CReefs project

“Compared to what we don’t know, our knowledge of marine life is a proverbial drop in the ocean. Inventorying the vast diversity and abundance of life across all ocean realms challenges both science and the imagination.”

Researchers were also fascinated by discoveries of various isopods — often referred to as vultures of the sea, since some feed on dead fish.

Some isopods are parasitic and burrow into the flesh of live fish. Most infamous of the parasitic isopod are cymothoids — the “tongue biter” — named as such as they invade a fish and eat its tongue off, essentially replacing the tongue by attaching to the host’s mouth.

The scientists’ studies also included seaweeds, urchins, and lace corals known as Bryozoans for which colonies consist of asexually budded (and therefore genetically identical) individuals. Colonies form large intricate structures which bear no resemblance to the structure of the individual.

Cuttlefish on Lizard Island. Photo John Huisman / Murdock University

Octopus venturing out from its hollow. Photo John Huisman / Murdock University

Ctenophore or Comb jellyfish collected on Wassteri Reef, Heron Island.
Photo John Huisman / Murdock University

“Amazingly colorful corals and fishes on reefs have long dazzled divers, but our eyes are just opening to the astonishing richness of other life forms in these habitats,” says CoML Chief Scientist Ron O’Dor.

“Hundreds of thousands of forms of life remain to be discovered. Knowledge of this ocean diversity matters on many levels, including possibly human health — one of these creatures may have properties of enormous value to humanity.”

“The new Australian expeditions reveal how far we are from knowing how many species live in coral reefs around the globe. Estimates span the huge range from1 to 9 million.” says Dr. Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, another principal investigator with CReefs.

Caulerpa cupressoides green alga. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Green banded snapping shrimp, Alpheus parvirostris, taken from a dead coral head
off Heron Island. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

White topped coral crab. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Most people think of the hard corals, and not so much of the sand flats and other sorts of habitats that exist, but it’s in those other habitats that a lot of these species reside. Those are the sort of places that haven’t been well sampled, and the researchers at the Heron Island Research Station off the coast of Gladston, Australia are trying to get a better idea of marine life that lives in them.

There are many unseen communities with incredibly diverse populations all living together and building unseen ecosystems from the ruins of another.

Bleaching, climate change, bacterial infections, severe weather conditions, and human intervention have all contributed to the decline of these reefs, and will continue to do so. Yet this group of scientists is proving that a hidden and sometimes overlooked world continues to exist and dazzle the imagination of what may be.

The researchers also set out new methods designed to help standardize measurement of the health, diversity and biological makeup of coral reefs worldwide.

Colonial salp jellyfish captured off Lizard Island. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Mollusks. Photo Census of Marine Life

Nudibranch on coral head off Heron Island. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

“Corals face threats ranging from ocean acidification, pollution, and warming to overfishing and starfish outbreaks.” said Dr. Ian Poiner, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), which led the research.

“Only by establishing a baseline of biodiversity and following through with later censuses can people know the impact of those threats and find clues to mitigate them.”

Dr. Poiner also chairs the Scientific Steering Committee of the CoML which will release its first global census in October 2010 after a decade of research.

Dr Julian Caley says the 3 explored coral reef sites are located in 2 ocean basins with different levels of biodiversity.

“These site characteristics offer clues to predict patterns of biodiversity on reefs that are well known and those that aren’t.”

A sea urchin off Heron Island. Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

The underside of a nardoa rosea, or sea star, in the waters off Heron Island.
Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Photo Census of Marine Life

Previous studies have uncovered large differences in the biodiversity at the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard Island and Heron Island further south, where there are 30% more hard corals and 40% more fishes. The cause of such variations in species diversity is poorly understood, but species richness in the region tends to decrease with distance from the equator.

Understanding these biodiversity gradients will help scientists predict reef biodiversity worldwide.

Expeditions to the same 3 sites will be repeated annually over the next 3 years to continue their inventory and measure impacts of climate change and other processes over time.

Photo Census of Marine Life

Photo Census of Marine Life

Photo Census of Marine Life

Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures
The CReefs team expect to find out more about the fragile ecosystems on the reef by placing innovative dollhouse-like artificial habitats for animals to colonize on the ocean floor at Lizard and Heron Islands.

Dollhouse-like artificial habitats for animals to colonize.
Photo Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum

Creatures that move into these Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS), which provide shelter designed to appeal to a variety of sea life, will be collected over the next 1 to 3 years to help scientists understand the patterns and rates of recolonization on these reefs.

Despite the large number of new species already discovered, Dr. Caley believes as many new species again may be found on future expeditions.

CReefs has embarked on a mission to create a more precise estimate of reef species by the time of the first CoML synthesis report in 2010.

“Even at the low end of this range, we must wonder why nature has evolved such prolific diversity on coral reefs. While they are icons of diversity, the processes that have generated and maintained coral reef biodiversity are still unknown.” adds Dr. O’Dor.

Photo Census of Marine Life

Photo Census of Marine Life

Photo Census of Marine Life

Expeditions
Each of the 3 expeditions — Lizard Island, April 2 to 22, Ningaloo June 5 to 25 and Heron, Aug 25 to Sept 14 — was 3 weeks in duration and included about 25 members.

Photo Census of Marine Life

Photo Census of Marine Life

Sand flats. Photo Census of Marine Life

Samples of dead coral heads — the skeleton of a coral emptied of the fleshy animal that once lived inside — were obtained to capture all of the animals inside. A single dead coral head can yield more than 150 individual crustaceans, mollusks, and echinoderms. These dead coral heads host many thousands of species worldwide.

As with the ARMS devices, the collection and analysis of biodiversity in dead coral heads is being standardized to promote the comparability of research worldwide.

The Australian expedition is part of an unprecedented global census of coral reefs, CReefs, one of 17 Census of Marine Life projects.

Photo Census of Marine Life

Squat Lobsters. Photo Census of Marine Life

Pistol Shrimp and Heat Worms. Photo Census of Marine Life

Coral reefs are highly threatened repositories of extraordinary biodiversity, often called “the rainforests of the sea,” but little is known about the ocean’s diversity as compared to its terrestrial counterpart.

Important issues being addressed by CReefs Australia include:
• How many species live on coral reefs?
• How many of these are unique to coral reefs? and
• How does this diversity respond to human disturbance?

Sea grasses and algae. Photo Census of Marine Life

Sea grasses and algae. Photo Census of Marine Life

CReefs, led by scientists at AIMS, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), aims to census life in coral reef ecosystems, to consolidate and improve access to coral reef ecosystem information scattered throughout the world, and to strengthen tropical taxonomic expertise.

The biodiversity data generated will be made publicly available through the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) an initiative of the Census of Marine Life.

Among other activities, CReef associates in India convened this year to review the success of a series of 17 recommendations made to government in 1998, ranging from the establishment of marine protected areas and related legislation to the creation of a National Coral Reef Research Center.

Source: Census of Marine Life

Tags:animal animals Australia environment expeditions features Great Barrier Reef Heron Island Lizard Island marine life new species Ningaloo Reef science

Related Stories from the Past

• Sardine Run Shark Feeding Frenzy Phenomenon in Africa
• Magnificent Puffins of North Sea Feared in Critical Decline
• Natures Amazing Colors – the Meaning of Yellow
• Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
• 35 Ghosts of Nature – Albino Animals of the Wild
• Bug-Eyed Pygmy Tarsier Primate Rediscovered in Indonesia
• Two Amazing New Species of Flying Lemurs Discovered
• Baby Penguin Finds its Surrogate Sibling in a Toy
• Stunning Smithsonian Ocean Hall Sea Sights
• Giant Prehistoric Bird the Size of a Small Plane Discovered