Costa Cetacea

Costa Rica's Unsung Hero-Tropical Marine Bioproductivity.

Costa Rica's biodiversity has grown into the consciousness of the world and achieved fame and fortune. But do you know about this country´s unsung hero; bioproductivity? While our forests bloom a renowned terrestrial biodiversity rivaling any similar sized area in the world, our oceans surface waters, coasts and islands are not particularly high in marine biodiversity. The deep sea bottoms might hold a world class biodiversity, but we do not know yet. But we do have perhaps the worlds highest tropical marine bioproductivity. Bioproductivity is just as cool as biodiversity.

While other places boast tens of thousands more marine species than Costa Rica's ocean area, our high marine bioproductivity means that we have tens of thousands more animals in a given area, just of fewer species. Think of one hundred beautiful masked booby seabirds. Then one thousand frolicking spinner dolphins, with ten thousand rocketing yellow fin tuna below, and fifty thousand Audubon´s shearwaters and brown booby seabirds whirling and swooping above. Throw in five hundred thousand shimmering rainbow comb jelly plankton and a few million finger sized little lantern fish forming shape changing bait balls. Not so many species, but a lot of animals. That's bioproductivity and that's a special unique quality about Costa Rica's Pacific.

Now this does not mean that the nations coral reefs are not wonderfully biodiverse ecosystems, they are, but they are no where near the most marine biodiverse in the world. The Indo Pacific contains probably tens of thousands more marine species than Costa Rica's pacific. Check out the example of coral. Our Pacific surface waters have just a few dominant species of corals with around thirty or forty species total, with most places covered with less than 10 species. Costa Rica's Caribbean grows maybe 80 species of coral in coastal waters, more than twice as biodiverse as the west coast. But places in Indonesia explode with hundreds or even thousands of species of corals. The story is the same for shellfish, alga, starfish and urchins, sea cucumbers, sea grass, sponges, fish and others. Simply put, the Indo Pacific has the worlds greatest known marine biodiversity.

One indicator ocean hunters, naturalists and scientists use to gage marine bioproductivity is birds. The thinking goes that the more birds you see the greater the bioproductivity. There would not be thousands of birds flying over a slice of ocean unless there was a reason. The reason is food; small fish, crustaceans, plankton and other marine life that abound in and define productive waters. You can see flying offshore of the Osa peninsula, congregations of more sea birds than seems possible to count. So the marine bioproductivity must be off the scale. Large numbers of other top predators like dolphins, tuna and commercial, sport and artisan fishers, also act as flags to high bioproductivity and confirm yet another Costa Rican natural treasure-world class tropical marine bioproductivity.

The Americas equivalent to highest terrestrial bioproductivity may have once been the North American great plains, where roamed vast herds of buffalo, deer and antelope, with sky darkening clouds of Carolina parakeets covering whole states, with plenty of bear, wild cats, beaver, otter and mink mixed throughout. Birds like eagles and hawks were so common that many people made clothes out of their feathers. Of course, now these ecosystems are more the stuff of song and legend than reality as too much was taken from them and they collapsed.

Costa Rica is blessed with living, intact astounding bioproductivity that you can get on boat and see on a day trip. Vast pods of dolphins stretching out of sight, flocks of seabirds darkening the sky and fish clouding the sea. This ecosystem is as wonderful a natural attraction as anything else in Costa Rica, a true world marvel, yet few others then fishermen know it. Pelagic, or open ocean, tourism is highly underdeveloped in Costa Rica yet holds great potential as there is already an infrastructure of boats and facilities in place. The high bioproductivity will soon lead to a greater local human economic productivity, if the resource is managed well. Luckily there is still time to sing praises and perpetuate some of the worlds greatest tropical marine bioproductivity.