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Project Information
Core international projects dealing with the ocean, as well as the UNEP
Biodiversity and Climate Change Program, have emphasized an urgent need for
information on the impact of climate change on species diversity and on the
development of efforts to deal with this impact. In order to assess this
impact, a global database of historical data sets is needed. For instance,
there is a lack of knowledge on the interannual climate-related variability
of zooplankton communities of the tropical Atlantic,
central Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea,
Aral Sea, and Arabian Sea due
to the absence of appropriate databases.
The general goal was to develop a plankton database of the Former Soviet
Union expeditions (carried out by the academic research vessels), available
for the international scientific community. This database contains 41
expeditions to the Atlantic Ocean and over 30
expeditions to the enclosed seas of the Atlantic Ocean,
including over 30 years of sampling in the Mediterranean Sea,
the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea,
the Aral Sea, and 14 expeditions to the Indian
Ocean.
Basic approach to the proposed research involved:
 Development of co-operation between experts
and data holders in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, UK, and USA to
rescue and compile the oceanographic data sets and release them on CD-ROM.
The organization and compilation of a database
based on FSU cruises to the above regions.
The analysis of the basin-scale interannual
variability of the zooplankton species abundance, biomass, and species
diversity.
The Database was created with
the assistance of the following institutions:
Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, Ukrainain
National Academy
of Sciences
Sevastopol, Ukraine
Marine Hydrophysical Institute, Ukrainain
National Academy
of Sciences
Sevastopol, Ukraine
Caspian Biological Station, Institute
of Zoology of Azerbaijan
Academy of Sciences
Baku, Azerbaijan
Institute of Zoology
and NGO “Tethys”,
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Marine Sciences Research Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook,
USA
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Plymouth, United
Kingdom
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