The ocean is the largest ecosystem on Earth and yet we know very little about it. This is particularly true for the plankton that drift within. Although these organisms are at least as important for the Earth system as the forests on land, most of them are invisible to the naked eye and thus are largely uncharacterized, even though they form the base of marine food webs. To increase our understanding of this underexplored world, a multidisciplinary consortium, Tara Oceans, was formed around the 110-ft research schooner Tara, which sampled plankton at more than 210 sites and multipledepth layers in all the major oceanic regions during expeditions from 2009-2013 (Karsenti et al. Plos Biol., 2011). The seminar will describe the first foundational resources from the project (based on a first data freeze from 579 samples at 75 stations; seeScience special issue May 22, 2015) and their initial analyses, illustrating several aspects of the TaraOceans’ eco-systems biology approach. The project provides unique resources for several scientific disciplines, capturing biodiversity of a wide range of organisms that are rarely studied together, exploring interactions between them and integrating them with environmental conditions to further our understanding of life in the ocean and beyond in the context of ongoing climate changes.

More information about Chris Bowler: http://www.ibens.ens.fr/spip.php?rubrique36