The last prognosis on the health of the world’s seas is good news: “The global ocean is better than I thought, the capacity to degrade contaminants and plastics is higher than we thought, jellyfish are not increasing globally [as feared by climate change], water acidification is happening, but is less severe, in terms of their biological effects than estimated, and fish stocks are between 10 and 30 times higher than previous estimates, and not fished, “sums Carlos Duarte. This is the driving oceanographer and director of Malaspina project, a major initiative of the Spanish science that materialized in the circumnavigation of the globe between 2010 and 2011, covering all oceans except for the polar and sampling them.
About 80 scientists are meeting this week in Barcelona to discuss and share the results already emerging from the expedition, but has not yet been completed more than about 10% of what is expected to be the scientific production of Malaspina .
A positive diagnosis does not mean, or anything, you have no pressing issues, such as the presence of contaminants in the ocean. The expedition has identified how globally distributed dioxin compounds generated in the combustion of organic waste. “The concentrations are higher near continents than in the central areas of the oceans, which is explained by the degradation processes during transport and deposited directly from the atmosphere,” explains Jordi Dachs, CSIC researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences There is not a single sample of the expedition, and hundreds taken into more than 140 surveys in the oceans, which has no contaminants, accurate Dash
No plastic island
” This famous island of plastic, allegedly between U.S. Oregon coast and Hawaii, there “said Carlos Duarte resounding. It is true that there are five areas of large accumulations of plastic waste in the open ocean, which are relatively isolated areas where ocean circulation and no contamination enters the bag, but it is not an island, not five, explains oceanographer. “The concentration of plastics is there around 200 grams per square kilometer, it is certainly not the island that has been so airy” emphasizes Duarte
Pollution by plastic waste in the oceans has scale. planet, but there was a sharp increase in these materials between the fifties and eighties of the last century and now is not increasing its mass in the oceans although production continues to grow, scientists have found. “Maybe plastics are degraded by microorganisms,” suggests Duarte. “O those materials to be fragmented so small particles that escape our survey networks, or some animals are consuming the … I do not know,” says oceanographer. He adds: “A 2% of the plastics produced in the world come ashore, half sinks into the water and the other half enters the ocean circulation, but in fact we found only 1% of what should have. “
A key contribution of the Malaspina expedition that is repeated in all areas of research addressed is the expansion of sampling to virtually the entire planet, while until now, there were areas studied, especially the Atlantic-and other virtually unknown, researchers say. Thus, the Spanish research becomes a kind of global base year for which can be referenced in the future multiple investigations of the evolution of the state of the seas.
With a total budget of six million euros plus the cost of the ships used in the rounding-the Hesperides and Sarmiento de Gamboa – has been “the most interdisciplinary project that has been done on global change” emphasizes the CSIC. He took the name of the Spanish scientific expedition commanded, in the late eighteenth century, the marine Alejandro Malaspina.
Also polls fish biomass made at depths between 400 and 700m have given a positive surprise scientists. “Are fish between 5 and 20 inches in length, as the lantern fish, dragon fish or fish of light, and are much more abundant in subtropical central basin of what was estimated between 10 and 30 times” Duarte explains, CSIC researcher and prestigious international oceanographer. “It was thought that the waters, these latitudes are virtually a desert and it is not. Thing is that life is hidden in the depths of day because approximately one third of these fish ascend at night to feed the area’s surface of the water, “he adds.
What a pessimistic prognosis Duarte is the prospect of continued research on such information obtained. “Where are they, where are they going to be, hands and brains to make that scientific paper young Many researchers have had to leave the country or are unemployed. And the next generation of Spanish scientists?’m Very discouraged” says. An experiment was set up on the fly was to measure the radioactivity in the Pacific following the accident at Japan’s Fukushima plant in March 2011 A couple of months later, the Hesperides sailed the ocean taking data and not recorded radioactivity levels higher than normal
Over 4,000 samples for science the future
Between 4000 and 5000 samples of the Malaspina expedition, duplicate material that scientists are working are stored for future researchers. There are five types of collections stored and at four locations, which can not be accessed until 10 or 20 years (with different dates but depending on the material).
The idea is to keep those witnesses of the current state oceans for the future generations of scientists have material with which to study the evolution of oceanic processes or even to deal with novel approaches to research samples from years before. The four locations are: the University of Cadiz, the Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC) in Barcelona; Institute of Marine Research in Vigo and the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, CSIC also where samples are stored pollutants.
In what are always working, although specialists know they have work for many years, is in the massive sequencing of microbial genes, with more than 2,000 samples taken in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. “This is to evaluate the abundance and diversity of microorganisms global deep ocean [except the polar oceans], up to 4,000 meters deep,” explains the scientist Josep Gasol, CSIC researcher.
“From the outside all the ocean looks like, but is not, the samples are quite different among the various basins, “he adds. “50% of all species that we take in 240 liters of water each sampling, are new species,” said Duarte. This collection of marine microbial genomics, “the world’s first global,” the CSIC, “provide new clues to a reservoir of unexplored biodiversity because the finding could mean tens of millions of new genes in the next years. ” And the new genes can mean new applications in many fields.
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