Scientists Find Japanese Waters to be Biodiversity Hotspot

Copyright Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) announced on August 3, 2010, a comprehensive analysis on biodiversity in Japanese waters (exclusive economic zone), and concluded that Japanese waters are a biodiversity hotspot with an amazing diversity of marine life.

JAMSTEC, Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo conducted the analysis as part of an international project, the Census of Marine Life. About 50 Japanese researchers cooperated in compiling currently available literature data on marine diversity in Japanese waters.

A total of 33,629 species from bacteria to mammals have been reported to occur in Japanese waters. While constituting mere 0.9 percent of global ocean volume, Japanese waters encompass 14.6 percent of all 230,000 marine species found worldwide, making Japanese waters a world class biodiversity hotspot. The study attributes this to diverse marine environments in Japanese waters, including a variety of topography, water depth zones, water temperatures, currents and climate zones.

There also exist many undescribed species in Japanese waters due to the elementary knowledge of their taxonomy and ecology. In its study, JAMSTEC assessed the number of identified but undescribed species to be 121,913. Therefore, together with the 33,629 described species, there is an estimated 155,542 species currently distributed in Japanese waters.

The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) official website
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/

Posted: 2010/10/20 06:00:15 AM