“Kaiyo-Seibutu-Shigen“（Marine Biological Resources）is a research project to understand the controlling factors of the variations in marine biological resources and to develop the novel research equipments and technique for marine research. The “biological resources” treated in this project are not only commercially valuable fisheries target species but also plankton, jelly fish, benthos and fish without commercial value. Because the variations of commercially valuable stock, e.g., Japanese sardine, Pacific herring, Walleye pollock, etc., are not independent phenomena but influenced by various organisms in marine ecosystem as well as physical and biological environments. The goal of the “Kaiyo-Seibutsu-Shigen” is to understand the variation factors of marine food web based on scientific research results and develop the novel method for the sustainable and legitimate utilizeztion of marine resources.

The “Kaiyo-Seibutsu-Shigen” is constituted by 3 sub-projects, which are 1. DEEP (Deep-Sea Ecosystem and Exploitation Programme), 2. FRECS2 (The Second Phases of the Fisheries Resources in the East China Sea), and 3. MONITOR (Development of the Monitoring System of the Marine Ecosystem Variation).

This project is funded from the Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries Research Council (FY2002-2006).