Bonn, 27 June 2011 - An ambitious project, the “Census of Marine Life”, the largest inventory of marine life ever to have been compiled, has begun to bear fruit.

A team of marine biologists and computer experts from the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University first gathered in 1999 to determine who best to chart the migration of a range of marine species, as diverse as sharks, whales, tuna fish, seals and turtles. The process used, called “tagging of Pacific predators” (TOPP) has now given the experts a clearer picture of the routes followed by the animals and it now seems that there is a “highway” for sharks in the oceans.

To read more about the project on the website of Nature, the international weekly journal on science click here. A related article was also published online by the magazine “Der Spiegel” (in German). Click here.