To mark the five years of the Paris Agreement, the famous sailboat Tara, designed by explorer Jean-Louis Étienne, left the port of Lorient on Saturday 12 December for a new mission called "Micobiomes", this hidden face oceans made up of millions of species mostly invisible to the naked eye.
This symbolic date "reminds us that the short term, with the Covid crisis, should not make us forget the long term issues" of global warming, of which the ocean is the "poor relation", commented Romain Troublé, general manager of the Tara Ocean Foundation, relieved that the project is finally starting after many postponements linked to the health crisis.
The ship, 36 meters long, 10 meters wide, heads straight for Punta Arenas in southern Chile, where the first scientists will embark in February.
It must cover a total of nearly 38,000 miles (70,000 km) at sea, with 21 stopovers, over 21 months.
[LIVE 🔴] After weeks of preparation, Tara sets sail and the crew leaves Lorient for 2 years of scientific and human adventures ⛵ https://t.co/o9qbxQQvE5#FondationTaraOcéan @LorientAgglo
- Tara Ocean Foundation (@TaraOcean_) December 12, 2020
Explore the secrets of invisible marine microorganisms
Its objective is to probe the secrets of invisible marine microorganisms and finally understand the key role they play in the oceanic ecosystem.
They can live floating, attached to other organisms such as zooplankton, or inside other organisms, like the human microbiota, these billions of microorganisms living in our intestine.
Described at the end of the 19th century by German biologist Ernst Haeckel, and widely listed thanks to the previous "Tara Oceans" mission, these microorganisms represent "at least two thirds of all the biomass of the oceans", ie four times more than the cumulative biomass of all insects on Earth, explains Chris Bowler, scientific director of the Tara Ocean consortium.
But of their operation, we ignore everything.
The challenge of "Tara Microbiome" is therefore to probe the "theater of activity" of this microbial life, essential to the entire oceanic ecosystem, and which constitutes the first link in the food chain.
"We are going to put ourselves in the shoes of a microbe to understand", summarizes Colomban de Vargas, research director at CNRS, co-director of the "Microbiomes" mission.
On board, the crew will probe the sea water up to 1000 meters deep, collect tens of thousands of samples, which will be stored at extremely cold temperatures in liquid nitrogen.
"We are going to take from the invisible," quips Romain Troublé.
He's Miguel, one of the scientists on the schooner.
He knows very well in rosette (the nice nickname of the CTD)!
Imminent departure on December 12 ⏱ Discover his portrait 👇 pic.twitter.com/FxpJcLqoz8
- Tara Ocean Foundation (@TaraOcean_) December 3, 2020
Dozens of researchers
After Chile, the schooner will follow South America to the Panama Canal, pass through the French Antilles, descend along the Amazon, Argentina, then set sail for the Weddell Sea, in Antarctica. .
From Antarctica, it will go up to South Africa in March 2022, then along the African continent, with several stopovers, before reaching Lisbon in September 2022 and returning to France.
In total, fifteen sailors and 80 researchers will take turns on board, with 42 scientific institutions involved in 13 countries, including France, Chile, Brazil, Italy and South Africa.
After Tara Oceans, Tara Pacific and Tara Microplastics in particular, Tara Microbiomes is the 12th mission since the launch, in 2003, of these expeditions by Etienne Bourgois and Agnès b ..
With AFP
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