Abstract
Interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere occur at the air-sea interface through the transfer of momentum, heat, gases and particulate matter, and through the impact of the upper-ocean biology on the composition and radiative properties of this boundary layer. The Tara Pacific expedition, launched in May 2016 aboard the schooner Tara, was a 29-month exploration with the dual goals to study the ecology of reef ecosystems along ecological gradients in the Pacific Ocean and to assess inter-island and open ocean surface plankton and neuston community structures. In addition, key atmospheric properties were measured to study links between the two boundary layer properties. A major challenge for the open ocean sampling was the lack of ship-time available for work at stations. The time constraint led us to develop new underway sampling approaches to optimize physical, chemical, optical, and genomic methods to capture the entire community structure of the surface layers, from viruses to metazoans in their oceanographic and atmospheric physicochemical context. An international scientific consortium was put together to analyze the samples, generate data, and develop datasets in coherence with the existing Tara Oceans database. Beyond adapting the extensive Tara Oceans sampling protocols for high-resolution underway sampling, the key novelties compared to Tara Oceans' global assessment of plankton include the measurement of (i) surface plankton and neuston biogeography and functional diversity; (ii) bioactive trace metals distribution at the ocean surface and metal-dependent ecosystem structures; (iii) marine aerosols, including biological entities; (iv) geography, nature and colonization of microplastic; and (v) high-resolution underway assessment of net community production via equilibrator inlet mass spectrometry. We are committed to share the data collected during this expedition, making it an important resource important resource to address a variety of scientific questions.
Highlights
Humans have accelerated the input of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates, and modern policy and governance in key countries suggests that there will be little effort to curb this tendency (Masson-Delmotte et al, 2018)
Neuston is closely connected to plankton communities and comprises all domains of life, including prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes, fungi, metazoans as well as viruses
We present the sampling strategy adopted during the Tara Pacific expedition (Planes et al, 2019) to study open water ecosystems at the ocean-atmosphere interface across the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific Ocean, and in the wake of several tropical coral islands
Summary
Humans have accelerated the input of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates, and modern policy and governance in key countries suggests that there will be little effort to curb this tendency (Masson-Delmotte et al, 2018). Neuston is closely connected to plankton communities and comprises all domains of life, including prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), unicellular eukaryotes (protists), fungi, metazoans as well as viruses. It includes enhanced abundances of eggs and larvae of organisms living in the water column and on the seafloor (Zaitsev, 1971; Sundby, 1991; Wurl and Obbard, 2004), as well as insects, and floating organic and inorganic debris. This marine litter, including plastic, can be rapidly colonized by microbial and macrobial communities (Dussud et al, 2018a) and will act as dispersive vectors for a variety of organisms (Barnes, 2002; Zettler et al, 2013; Viršek et al, 2017)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
