International biodiversity treaties have caused unexpected problems for a modern day Darwin and his team of scientists.

Maverick biologist Craig Venter sailed to Bermuda in 2003 to start building a ?genomic catalogue? of the oceans? microbes, but a handful of countries along his route have prevented him from taking seawater samples, citing fears of bio-piracy.

Describing his experiences to the Business Daynewspaperin South Africa, Dr. Venter said Bermuda?s officials did not make a distinction between basic science and bio-prospecting.

?If Darwin were alive today and tried to do his research he would not be allowed to do so,? he claimed.

Dr. Venter said officials in Bermuda complained the country was unable to share the economic advantages flowing from his investigation of their coastal waters.

Yet Bermuda?s scientists from the Bermuda Biological Station for Research were given free access to the expensively researched data, he said. This could easily be turned to Bermuda?s advantage ? it could be used, for example, to monitor the health of their reefs.

?The irony is I got falsely accused of not putting the human genome in the public domain, and now we?re accused of putting information in the public domain against the wishes of various governments,? he says.

?When people think someone else owns (information), they are all for public release. When they think they own it, they have a very different view.?

Inspired by the epic sea voyages of Charles Darwin, Dr. Venter and his collaborators from the BBSR captured the DNA of the bacteria and viruses on filter paper, and shipped the material back to his US lab at the J. Craig Venter Institute Joint Technology Centre in Rockville, Maryland.

They were astonished to find 1,800 species of bacteria off Bermuda in the Sargasso Sea, including 150 new ones. To put it another way, they found 1.2 million ?new? genes in just a few barrels of seawater.

The scientists found 800 different photoreceptor genes ? used for making light-sensitive proteins like those found in our eyes ? among the microscopic organisms.

Dr. Venter says this could explain why so many bacteria happily live in this nutrient-deprived water, using sunlight to make energy.has been collecting samples of sea water every 200 kilometres since it first set out from Bermuda.

?Each millilitre of seawater contains one million bacteria and 10 million viruses. Next time you are in the ocean and swallow a mouthful of sea water, imagine how many species you?ve consumed,? he says.

The cost of decoding genomes has fallen dramatically since the human genome was first mapped, enabling scientists to detail the genetic code of a host of plants and creatures such as dogs and mice.

It turns out that there is a remarkable overlap in genetic material between species, but scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what individual genes do, and which ones perform specific functions, such as absorbing carbon dioxide from the air.

Dr. Venter is leading the charge to find these genes, sampling the air above New York City and in the depths of the ocean.

It travelled through the Panama Canal, to the Galapagos Islands, then to French Polynesia and across to Australia and then sailed across the Indian Ocean to South Africa, from where it will set off to the Caribbean.

So far, about 85 percent of the genes in each seawater sample are unique to their site, says Dr. Venter, suggesting the oceans consist of myriad distinct ecosystems.

?We are at the earliest stages of discovering who and what is on our planet,? he says.