The Tara Oceans Expedition

The Tara Oceans Expedition Emmanuel Reynaud and Luis Gutierrez-Heredia The tiny, the imperceptible, the invisible: one might imagine that the indiscernible - due to their apparently insignificant qualities could not have the importance of the large charismatic animals, that they could not have the effects of the organisms we can actually see. What this kind of mentality is unable to perceive is that it is precisely because of this concealment that these creatures are capable of multiplying exponentially; becoming the fundamental building blocks upon which the largest ecosystems are built. Phronima sp., Crustacea. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2009. Height: 2.4cm. 4 Issue 33 March 2014 5 It is extraordinary to realise that 98% of the are our past, our present and studying them is like ocean cell mass is unicellular. One litre of water taking the pulse of our planet. may contain hundreds of millions of unicellular When these tiny beings are organised among organisms, hundreds of billions of viruses and themselves, they create highly adaptable and bacteria are included. Each of these organisms has resilient relationships. The oceans are dominated a definite form and although their life is brief, they by open chaotic systems formed by these are intrinsic elements in the composition of the relationships which allow constant responses to seas. Their form is created and sustained by the environmental changes. Oceanic areas organise flow of environmental factors in which they live. themselves by changing their subtle regulatory They are what they eat, what they breathe, where capacity in response to each local change in the they multiply.Their presence and metabolism define seas. These structures are stable to the extent that the environment in which other beings live. They the conditions under which they were created are are the basis of the food chain; they sequester kept within certain limits, yet the large number atmospheric CO2 into the ocean, create deposits of degrees of freedom inherent in these systems (rocks, oils…) and produce half of the oxygen we can also enable a new self-organisation to occur. breathe. Therefore, while a planktonic organism However even though these systems may appear is an individual and distinguishable entity, it is to be very stable, relatively small modifications can inseparable from the ocean that produced it. This cause dramatic changes. Minute influences may act is how the “tiny, the imperceptible, the invisible” are in such ways that the entire system is transformed. connected with the totality of the oceans and in This is where human activities may have a major turn, with the continents and the atmosphere. They effect. We have caused significant disruptions in Two diatoms, Planktoniella sol. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. Large: 25 µm diameter. 6 Issue 33 March 2014 Squat lobster, Crustacea. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2009. Length: 6cm. 7 Iridescent copepod. Crustacea. South Atlantic Ocean. Sebastien Colin / EPPO / CNRS / Tara Oceans. 2011. 300 µm length. the oceans with our comings and goings and as we know virtually nothing about the organisation, abundance and health of the most representative parts of the oceans we are unable to make accurate predictions of the effects of human activities. This is terrible, because we depend on the oceans; we are also part of that system. And if this system collapses, we will shortly follow. Because of this manifest ignorance, prestigious expeditions have been organised in order to increase our inadequate knowledge of the oceans. The most famous were the four expeditions of Columbus (1492-1596), the three voyages around the globe of James Cook on the HMS Endeavour (1768-1780), the fateful excursion of Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle (1831-1836) and one of the most featured one was achieved by Sir Charles Wyville Thomson on the HMS Challenger (18721877), lasting for nearly four years with the aim of studying the depths and the diversity of marine life, even though one of the reasons for this research in the English agenda was establishing dominance over an intercontinental telegraph system. The scientific planning for the HMS Challenger expedition was a gargantuan work: transforming a military ship into a research centre at sea, recording with physics, chemistry, geology and natural history laboratories equipped with the most advanced A dinoflagellate, Protopteridinium. North Pacific Ocean. Luis GutiérrezHeredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. 20 µm height. instruments of the time. 6 scientists and 243 Plan of the Tara vessel, including drylab setup. crew members sailed for 127,000 km (68,890 and specimens; a very young science at that time. miles) sampling 362 stations, recording 492 depth One of a kind, this expedition resulted in major soundings and dredging 133 times, discovering advances in what little was known about the world 4,700 new species. This trip went around the world ocean biogeography. Even today, its publications and touching every continent, including Antarctica, and preserved specimens are studied. scientists with great artistic skills - such as Ernst As the last major world scientific exploration Haeckel - were involved and the publication of the occurred 173 years ago, to Etienne Bourgois and Eric results took far longer than the expedition itself (30 Karsenti it seemed a great idea to run a new global years) with the published results amounting to fifty expedition along with the help and main financial heavy tomes. All kinds of research were conducted: support of the famous fashion designer Agnès B such as studies of the water column and the animals and here is where the concept of the Tara Oceans contained therein, the collection and preservation Expedition (2009-2012) was conceived. The Tara of samples, scientific visits to several sites and Oceans Expedition was a unique circumnavigation above all a photographic record of the localities of the earth on a 36-meter schooner to analyse and 11 Squid, Mollusca. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. Length: 3.3cm. 12 Issue 33 March 2014 13 Calanoid copepod eggs. South Atlantic Ocean. Emmanuel G. Reynaud / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. Artistic impression using false colours. Each egg: 50 µm diameter. Comb jelly, Ctenophora. South Atlantic Ocean. Mattias Ormestad / Kahi Kai / Tara Oceans. 2010. 3cm diameter. 16 Issue 33 March 2014 17 A tiny ribbon-like fish larvae,. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2009. Length: 15cm, head: 0.5cm. 18 collect plankton communities and coral specimens planktonic metazoans to some nektonic metazoans. to establish a freely-available database comprising Included were trips to the Antarctic and 4 trips to satellite images, geochemical data, photographic coral reefs (Djibouti, Saint Brandon, Mayotte and images and genomic sequences to describe them the Gambier Archipelago). The planning of this as comprehensively as possible. The main idea was trip envisaged an on-board crew performing data to have a more realistic picture of the oceans and collection and processing, together with an onshore marine life; very much like the purpose of the HMS team conducting studies in laboratories focusing Challenger expedition. With a cohort of nearly 200 on specific areas with particular oceanographic scientists representing 12 disciplines and with the qualities and maintaining contact through satellite support of 65 laboratories and institutes around techniques. the world it was intended to generate a more The Tara Oceans expedition has very similar holistic view of the sea utilising oceanographic, features to the HMS Challenger expedition: distance, ecological, microbiological, genomic, molecular, travel time, relative cost, compartmentalisation of cellular, systematic, taxonomic, bioinformatic and the ship, use of classical sampling methods and state- ecosystem modelling techniques. The range of of-the-art equipment, frequent land stops, focus on studied organisms extended from viruses, giruses the relationships between physical, biogeochemical and bacteria through to archaea, protists and and biodiversity components, preservation of Issue 33 March 2014 A diatom, Bacillariophyta and an egg. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. The blue colour is due to light polarisation. Diatom: 50µm diameter. 19 Porpita sp., Cnidaria. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia / UCD / Tara Oceans. 2011. 1cm. 20 Issue 33 March 2014 21 Silver hatchetfish, Osteichthyes. North Pacific Ocean. Luis Gutiérrez-Heredia. 2011. Length: 5cm. 22 Issue 33 March 2014 23 samples, the long task of analysis and publication Marinesque, Jeremy Capoulade and Luis Gutierrez- of results post-expedition not to mention the Heredia. constant photographic record. This latter need gave rise to the creation of a unique imaging platform: the Tara Oceans Marine biology Imaging platform Further readings and links (TAOMI). A couple of the new features fulfilled by Articles this expedition were the measurement of pollution - Peat, FD and Briggs, J. 1999. Seven Life Lessons of and trash particles floating on the seas and raising Chaos. Harper Collins Publ. 207pp. Luis Gutiérrez Heredia University College Dublin, College of Science, School of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland luis.gutierrez-heredia@ ucdconnect.ie public awareness of the critical role of microscopic - Ernst Haeckel. Kunstformen der Natur (1904) Emmanuel G. Reynaud received his PhD in marine life, by means of modern media and by giving — Art forms of Nature, with plates representing 1999 at the University Paris-XI Orsay, France, Luis Gutiérrez Heredia is a third year PhD tours to school children and to the public in general. detailed marine animal forms where he studied cell cycle regulation in student in University College Dublin in use rhabdomyosarcoma derived cell lines. He of 3D imaging systems for marine biology went on an EMBO long term fellowship in research. He got his MSc in Biological Dr Rainer’s Pepperkok laboratory in EMBL, Photography and Imaging from the University Heidelberg, Germany, where he developed of Nottingham, England in 2010. He also new approaches in cell biology such as the participated in the Tara Oceans Expedition combination of microcontact printing and in 2009 and is the image curator of the laser nanosurgery for in toto golgi apparatus image database of the expedition from 2009 removal. In order to further explore the to 2010. He is deeply interested in the use possibility of light microscopy, he moved to of 3D imaging in census of marine biology, Prof. Ernst H.K. Stelzer lab to help with the from microscopic organisms to macroscopic development of light sheet microscopy in colonies. Also a new angle, and a very special one, was the use - Helen M. Rozwadowski, Fathoming the Ocean of a schooner (the famed Tara) for the expedition. (2005), Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674- The use of a ship with lesser draught greatly 02756-6 reduced travel costs and the carbon footprint and most importantly this showed that expeditions of this dimension could be made with smaller vessels. TAOMI provided optimal imaging and cytometry equipment for the researchers on board during their three years journey. This was a challenge due to the boat size, its stability and the limited amount of energy available that posed problems for the optical instrument designers. 23 optical engineers trained online and acquired 9 million images over - R. M. Corfield,The Silent Landscape: the Scientific Voyage of HMS Challenger (2003), Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 0-309-08904-2 - Eric Karsenti and Dino di Meo Tara Oceans, Chronicles of a Scientific Expedition published by Tara expeditions and Actes sud (in French only) - Karsenti E. et al. A holistic approach to marine eco-systems biology PLos Biology (2011) Volume 9 (10) collaboration with Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH leading to the release of the Light Sheet Life: Z.1 microscope and several patents. He was the most amazing and inspiring photos of this Macrophotography and Microscopy Approaches appointed Stokes Lecturer in Cell Biology at expedition were produced. for Marine Biology Print ISBN: 9783527327447; University College Dublin in Ireland in 2009 This expedition was and remains a great adventure, Online while running the imaging platform onboard where brave ‘Taranauts’ sailed through sudden 10.1002/9783527675418 two and a half years. It is from this section that - E.G.Reynaud (Ed.). ISBN: Imaging Marine 9783527675418; DOI: the schooner Tara during the Tara Oceans Expedition (2009-2012). Currently, he leads storms, awe-inspiring landscapes, hot tropical weather, pirate-infested waters and unhurried Web links the “R” Lab, a multidisciplinary environment icebergs. It is an attempt to complete the neglected http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/ working on 3D cell biology from 3D cell picture we have about the oceans, which continues to give us so much. The TA.O.M.I. team : Dr Emmanuel G. Reynaud (Leader), Dr Eric Röttinger (Macrophotogrphy/ Kahikai) Jarred Swalwell, Uros Krzic, Mattias Ormestad, Michael Sieraki, Anne Doye, Sebastien Colin, Franck Preijger, Christian Rouviere, Fabrice Not, Jennifer Gillette, Cedric Guigand, Aldine Amiel, Sasha Tozzi, Patrick Chang, Noan LeBescot, Daniel Bailey, Edouard Leymarie, Gabriela Gilkes, Sophie 24 Emmanuel G. Reynaud University College Dublin, Earth Institute, School of Biology and Environmental Science, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland [email protected] Issue 33 March 2014 http://www.kahikaiimages.com/-/galleries/ exhibitions/alive-adrift culture to 3D microscopy and 3D printing. http://www.kahikaiimages.com/-/galleries/ exhibitions/inhale-a-journey-into-the-coralreef http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_ expedition http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/scienceof-natural-history/expeditions-collecting/hmschallenger-expedition/ 25