The Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life aiming for a taxonomically comprehensive assessment of animal plankton biodiversity throughout the world ocean. The project goal is to produce information on species diversity, biomass, biogeographical distribution, genetic diversity, and community structure for an assemblage currently including approximately 6,800 described species. Data is integrated into the Ocean Biogeographical Information System (OBIS) portal.
Use Cases
- Mapping global zooplankton species distribution based on geo-referenced specimen entries.
- Analyzing genetic diversity and identifying cryptic species based on DNA barcode sequences.
- Studying community structure and biomass of animal plankton in unique marine environments.
- Reconstructing evolutionary histories of zooplankton species based on genetic analysis.
Strengths
- Aims for taxonomically comprehensive assessment of an assemblage of approximately 6,800 described species.
- Data is fully integrated and searchable from the authoritative Ocean Biogeographical Information System (OBIS) portal.
- Includes molecular analysis such as DNA barcoding for each species.
Limitations
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
Provenance
- Source
- Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ), a field project of the Census of Marine Life.
- Collection Method
- Field project collecting species-level, specimen-based, geo-referenced entries, with molecular analysis including DNA barcoding.
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- unknown
- Geography
- World ocean, encompassing unique marine environments.