Planktonauts take to the seas

Media release 21 October 2015

Planktonauts take to the seas

Five intrepid sailing crews will soon return to New Zealand carrying important ‘scientific keys’ that will help unlock some of the secrets of the world’s oceans.

Known as Planktonauts, these citizen oceanographers are part of an international project called Plankton Planet involving France, New Zealand and the USA. The project aims to better understand the tiny and diverse organisms – plankton – that are the foundation for all life in our oceans.

New Zealand-based Pacific Ocean Initiative is a key supporter of this global project and provides support to the New Zealand-based Plankton Planet team.

“As one of the greatest sailing nations in the world, along with our international standing for marine science, New Zealand was a natural partner for this project,” says New Zealand-based Plankton Planet team member Dr Xavier Pochon, a scientist at Cawthron Institute.

“Plankton produces half of the oxygen we breathe and exports every year around 10 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere to deep oceanic layers, yet we know very little about it,” Dr Pochon says. “On top of that, researching plankton is a huge undertaking. Current efforts rely on extremely costly and unflexible research vessels that will never be able to survey sufficient global oceanic plankton – which is where Plankton Planet comes in.”

Plankton Planet builds on the work initiated through the five-year Tara Oceans Expedition where, for the first time, a team of international scientists mapped the biodiversity of planktonic organisms (viruses to animals) from a single sailing research vessel – the Tara. Previously, the vessel (named Seamaster at the time) was used by the legendary Sir Peter Blake.

“A primary aim of Plankton Planet is to be able to better predict and model the effects of climate change on oceans biodiversity and global ecology. so it does feel like we are carrying on the important work Sir Peter and his team were involved in”, says Dr Pochon.

Following the Tara Oceans Expedition, a group of French researchers led by Dr Colomban de Vargas at the Biology Station of Roscoff, France established Plankton Planet with seed funding from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

Between 5,000 and 10,000 sailboats are crossing the world’s oceans at any given time according to Plankton Planet New Zealand team member Emmanuel Malpot.

“By tapping into this global fleet and building a crew of Planktonauts we can be more agile and efficient in gathering samples. At the same time, estimating biodiversity using the genetic barcoding techniques Tara Oceans Expedition researchers developed means scientists back on land can detect and quantify all of the organisms in a given sample.”

In the future, Plankton Planet will include a network of hundreds of Planktonauts, but this year the team is piloting the project with 25 sailing vessels from around the world, including five New Zealand-based boats that are expected to complete the six-month Pacific Circuit Rally in November. The rally navigates the Southwest Pacific Loop with stops in Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

“Being a volunteer Planktonaut is a real commitment. They need to take, preserve and store samples from a number of locations, as well as provide information for each sample such as GPS coordinates,” says Mr Malpot.

“That means Planktonauts need easy-to-use sampling tools that can stand up in extreme sailing conditions. We also want the tools to be environmentally friendly.”

With those requirements in mind, the Plankton Planet team has developed a basic sampling kit that can be used without needing any chemicals or electricity. The kit has been distributed to the Planktonauts for testing. Their feedback will help the Plankton Planet team further refine and improve the kit, so it can be rolled out to a wider group.

Dr Pochon says these first Planktonauts are important members of the Plankton Planet team.

“In terms of the New Zealand teams, they are adding to our country’s rich sailing legacy, while also contributing to a global initiative to better understand our oceans and the future of our planet”

For more information:

Visit: http://planktonplanet.org

Watch: https://vimeo.com/cawthron/planktonplanet

Research findings from the Tara Oceans Expedition were published in a special volume of the international journal Science (May 2015).

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