The 150,000-kilometre journey will take the French boat into all of the world's oceans and from the ice caps to the tropics, following and also expanding on Darwin's 1831 to 1836 trip on the HMS Beagle. See video at end of story.
Credit: Tara Oceans
PARIS: The schooner Tara has set out on a three-year scientific voyage, on the trail of Charles Darwin, to map the effects of climate change on marine organisms.
The 150,000-kilometre journey will take the French boat into all of the world's oceans and from the ice caps to the tropics, following and also expanding on Darwin's 1831 to 1836 trip on the HMS Beagle.
That voyage inspired Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, while the Tara's trip will study the clouds of tiny planktonic flora and fauna that produce much of the world's oxygen.
Vital organisms
"Without these microorganisms man would never have come into being. If they disappear, so do we," said Eric Karsenti, the expedition's 60-year-old scientific leader.
"Marine microorganisms - 90% of the oceans' biomass - absorb the majority of atmospheric carbon dioxide and produce half our oxygen," said Karsenti, senior scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.
"Measuring the impact of the warming that they are undergoing and studying the carbon and oxygen cycle will allow us to incorporate as yet unknown data in future climate simulation models," he said.
The mission, dubbed Tara-Oceans, is the double-masted yacht's second related to climate change following an 18-month trip between 2006 and 2008 to chart the shrinking ice sheets in the Arctic between Siberia and Greenland.
Stops in 50 nations
This time, the boat will cruise warmer waters in the Mediterranean and the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as well as returning to the Arctic and Antarctic and making stops in around 50 nations.
Divided between the 36-metre yacht and various laboratories on land, around 100 scientists will be involved in analysing the samples and data gathered.
"This ambitious mission will plunge us into the invisible world of marine ecosystems, one of the least explored realms of oceanography," said Etienne Bourgois, head of the French company Tara Expeditions.
"From viruses to jelly fish, larvae and fish and coral, to various microorganisms such as coccolithophorids and diatoms, we are going to study all the ecosystems at the base of the marine food chain," said Karsenti.
"This has never been done at the global level and in the continuity of all the seas of the world," he added.
Keystone species
The effects of climate change on marine organisms like plankton are not yet fully understood - some species might bloom in warmer waters, others might die out - and many are also threatened by pollution such as fertiliser run-off.
As ocean species die or thin out it has an effect right through the ecosystem as they form the base of the food chain as well as an oxygen source.
The Tara sailed out of the Breton port of Lorient in early September and headed south across the Bay of Biscay towards Lisbon. From there, it rounded Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean and is currently sailing between Morocco and Algeria.
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Scientists talk about the expedition which will spend three years retracing the voyage of Charles Darwin (Credit: Tara Oceans).
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