[Todos] SEMINARIO MARTES 23/11

[Ciencias de la Atmosfera & Oceanos]

SEMINARIO

BIODIVERSITY OF THE OCEANS:

TARA OCEAN EXPEDITION

Dr Eric Karsenti, EMBL-Heidelberg

Martes 23/11 a las 10 hs, aula 5, Subsuelo, Pab. 2, Ciudad Universitaria

Plankton plays a major role in the determination and regulation of the chemistry of our atmosphere,

controlling Oxygen and CO2 concentration through photosynthesis and the production of organic

matter. Yet, most of these organisms and their important role for life on earth are poorly known to

scientists and even less known of the public at large. Large initiatives like the Census of Marine

Life, satellite observation of chlorophyll distribution in the oceans and the deployment of automatic

Argo floats world-wide have begun to produce interesting data about oceanic biodiversity for some

species and the yearly distribution of photosynthetic activities at a global scale. Computer

simulations have also started to provide hints of how organisms distribute and evolve in the oceans.

However the data collected by the Census of Marine life are not sufficiently coherent and complete

to properly feed the modeling of ocean life and the satellite observations provide only information

about photosynthetic activity of a few species.

The goal of TARA OCEANS is three folds:

1- To develop a sampling pipeline that allows to determine the structure of ecosystems "end to end"

(from viruses to fish larvae) in a given environmentally characterized water mass. Using this tool,

we will begin to extract the principles that govern the spatio-temporal Biogeography of plankton

ecosystems. By injecting our data in computer models, we will test these models and develop

predictive tools about the evolution of plankton ecosystems composition and spatial distribution as

a function of long term climate changes.

2- To survey coral reef ecosystems when we pass by interesting remote and poorly studied reefs.

3- To promote ocean life knowledge and its impact on climate evolution through worldwide

education and outreach activities.

During the seminar I will explain all this and show how we work on TARA to get the samples and

data required to reach this goal. I will also show how these samples are studied on land as well as

preliminary results. I will show several movies about work and life on board TARA as well as

simulations of the self organization of plankton ecosystems worldwide.

Comisión de Investigación y Académica

Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución

Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales

Universidad de Buenos Aires

academica en ege.fcen.uba.ar



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