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expeditions/CReefs 2006/Glossary
Census
of Marine Life, Census of Coral Reefs Expedition to
French Frigate Shoals (October 2006)
Glossary
(Mahalo to The
Free Dictionary and Wikipedia)
Algae
(Limu in Hawaiian) -
Algae (singular alga) encompass several different groups
of usually relatively simple living organisms that capture
light energy through photosynthesis, converting inorganic
substances into simple sugars using the captured energy.
Algae have been traditionally regarded as simple plants,
and indeed some are closely related to the higher plants.
Others appear to represent different protist groups,
alongside other organisms that are traditionally considered
more animal-like (that is, protozoa). Thus algae do not
represent a single evolutionary direction or line, but
a level of organization that may have developed several
times in the early history of life on earth.
Alien Species - Plants and animals moved from their native
habitats to new locations by humans, either accidentally
or intentionally, are considered to be alien or introduced
species.
Crustacean -
The crustaceans (Crustacea) are a large group of arthropods
(55,000 species), usually treated as a subphylum
[1]. They include various familiar animals, such as
lobsters, crabs, shrimp and barnacles. The majority
are aquatic, living in either fresh water or marine
environments, but a few groups have adapted to terrestrial
life, such as terrestrial crabs, terrestrial hermit
crabs and woodlice. The majority are motile, moving
about independently, although a few taxa are parasitic
and live attached to their hosts (including sea lice,
fish lice, whale lice, tongue worms, and Cymothoa exigua),
and adult barnacles live a sessile life - they are
attached head-first to the substrate and cannot move
independently. Cryptofauna -
Cryptofauna are animals that are rarely seen and may
be extinct or
mythological.
Epifauna -
Epifauna are non-photosynthetic, benthic organisms that
live upon the surface of sediments
or soils.
GenBank - The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated
collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences
and their protein translations. This database is produced
at National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
as part of an international collaboration with the European
Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Data Library from
the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) and the DNA
Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ). GenBank and its collaborators
receive sequences produced in laboratories throughout
the world from more than 100,000 distinct organisms.
GenBank continues to grow at an exponential rate, doubling
every 10 months. Release 155, produced in August 2006,
contained over 65 billion nucleotide bases in more than
61 million sequences. GenBank is built by direct submissions
from individual laboratories, as well as from bulk submissions
from large-scale sequencing centers.
Infauna -
Infauna are aquatic organisms (usually animals, but sometimes
algae) that live within particulate media
such as sediments
or soil. They are most common in the subtidal and deeper
zones.
Invertebrate -
Invertebrate is a term coined by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
to describe any animal without a spinal column. The group
includes 97% of all animal species—all animals
except vertebrates (fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds
and mammals). Lamarck divided these animals into two
groups, the Insecta and the Vermes, but they are now
classified into over 30
phyla, from simple organisms such as sponges and flatworms
to complex animals such as arthropods and molluscs.
Macrofauna -
Macrofauna are benthic or soil organisms which are at
least several
centimeters in length. Meiofauna - Meiofauna
are small benthic invertebrates that live in both marine
and fresh water environments.
The
term Meiofauna
loosely defines a group of organisms by their
size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna,
rather than
a taxonomic grouping. In practice these are organisms
that can pass through a 1 mm mesh but will be
retained
by a
45 mm mesh, but the exact dimensions will vary
from researcher to researcher. Whether an organism
will
pass through
a 1 mm mesh will also depend upon whether it
is alive or
dead at the time of sorting.
Microbes -
A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is microscopic
(too small to be visible to the naked eye). Microorganisms
are often described as single-celled, or unicellular
organisms; however, some unicellular protists are visible
to the naked eye, and some multicellular species are
microscopic. The study of microorganisms is called microbiology.
Microfauna -
Microfauna are microscopic or very small animals (usually
including protozoans and very small
animals such as rotifers.
Morphospecies -
The traditional way to discern one species from another
is to use differences in body appearance, i.e., differences
in morphology which could involve shape, size, texture
or colour of external and/or internal body structures.
Species named in this way are sometimes referred to as
morphospecies. Different morphospecies tend to 'look
different'. Plankton -
The name plankton is derived from the Greek word meaning "wanderer" or "drifter" (Thurman,
1997). While some forms of plankton are capable of independent
movement and can swim up to several hundreds of metres
vertically in a single day (a behavior called diel vertical
migration), their horizontal position is primarily determined
by currents in the body of water they inhabit. By definition,
organisms classified as "plankton" are unable
to resist ocean currents. This is in contrast to nekton
organisms that can swim against the ambient flow of the
water environment and control their position (e.g. squid,
fish, krill and marine mammals).
Taxonomy -
In today's usage, Taxonomy (as a science) deals with
finding, describing and naming organisms. This science
is supported by institutions holding collections of these
organisms, with relevant data, carefully curated: such
institutes include Natural History Museums, Herbaria
and Botanical Gardens.
Ship
Logs:
Day-by-day
activities of the expedition.
Journals:
Daily
or semi-daily personal journal entries by
the particpants
in the expedition. These journals do not necessarily reflect
the positions of any of the agencies connected with this
project.
Interviews:
Interviews with expedition participants, scientists,
vessel crew, educators, etc.
Features:
Highlights or special information such as interesting
discoveries, articles or related research.
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