Tara Oceans studies plankton at PLANETARY SCALE

Archive ouverte

Bork, P. | Bowler, C. | de Vargas, Colomban | Gorsky, G. | Karsenti, E. | Wincker, P.

Edité par CCSD ; American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) -

International audience. The ocean is the largest ecosystem on Earth, and yet we know very little about it. This is particularly true for the plankton that inhabit the ocean. Although these organisms are at least as important for the Earth system as the rainforests and form the base of marine food webs, most plankton are invisible to the naked eye and thus are largely uncharacterized. To study this invisible world, the multinational Tara Oceans consortium, with use of the 110-foot research schooner Tara, sampled microscopic plankton at 210 sites and depths up to 2000 m in all the major oceanic regions during expeditions from 2009 through 2013 (1).

• Description
• Sujet/Public
• Outil
• Outil d'anticipation
• Mémoire et thèse
• Gestion