standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

standardised methods of collection, of preservation for genetic work and of
sequencing.
Regarding the population-species level of biodiversity, he said the
population dynamics of dispersal was vital for recovery from disturbances
and for standing stock. The small quantity of standing stock on the abyssal
plain lay at the heart of the assessment problem there.
The community and ecosystem level was where species diversity
came into play at different scales: alpha, beta and gamma or, more simply,
local, regional and global scales of biodiversity. As Dr. Etter would discuss
(chapter 18 below), among the challenging problems in the abyssal plains,
where densities were so low, were to document patterns of species diversity
on different scales and also to determine the scales of time and space at
which various processes shaped these patterns.
Finally, the diversity of different habitats could be seen at the
landscape level. The deep sea had a remarkably rich landscape of
biodiversity. The fauna was zoned according to depth. There were
important shifts in biodiversity between topographic structures such as
canyons, mountain tops, trenches and other physiographic features -- for
example, oxygen-minimum zones, current regimes, sedimentation and the
turbidite situation in the Atlantic Ocean, as at the Madeira Abyssal Plain
(MAP) site. There was a host of chemosynthetic communities that were
quite different from one another. In the Gulf of Mexico, for example, there
was a wide range of bizarre habitats including the Mississippi fan
escarpments and other strange topographic features such as a salt knoll,
brine pools, iron crusts and seeps of one kind or another. This surprising
richness of landscape diversity had to be taken into account because it was
now known that part of the fauna of these different habitats was shared but
it was not known how the dispersal of populations from one habitat had an
effect in supporting or preventing extinction of populations in other habitats.
Thus, biodiversity must be understood at all of these different
levels, which demanded a much broader view. So far, the discussion had
centred mostly on two levels.
As evidence of the rich landscape diversity of the deep sea, he
showed a high-resolution sonar image covering about 100 by 175
kilometres at the Clipperton transform fault, at the eastern end of the
Clipperton-Clarion Fracture Zone (CCFZ). This area, part of the ridge system
rather than the abyssal plain, contained a wonderfully diverse environment,
INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 309