High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Census of Marine Life is a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world's first comprehensive Census of Marine Life past, present, and future will be released in 2010 in London. Census researchers undertook the task of constructing the history of marine animal populations since human predation became important, roughly the last 500 years. This program component is the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP). The largest component of the Census involves investigating what now lives in the world's oceans through 14 field projects. Each is sampling important kinds of biota in one of six realms of the global oceans using a range of technologies. Details of these interesting and varied field projects are provided below.