Tara microbiome is the latest Tara expedition focused on plankton. The Microbiome Mission will help us understand the services provided by this essential ecosystem of the Ocean, its microbiome, an increasingly crucial challenge for scientific research and is done in conjunction with the AtlantECO program where additional ships will collect similar variables.

For two consecutive years (2023-2024), the schooner Tara is participating in the study of coastal ecosystems all along the European coast. The sampling of Tara Europa is part of the TREC expedition Traversing European Coastlines, led by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in collaboration with the Tara OceanS consortium, the Tara Ocean Foundation and more than 70 scientific institutions. Its objective is to study the land-sea interface, where biodiversity meets numerous pollutions.

The Tara Oceans expedition, a 2.5-year long and 57,000 mile long trajectory, was conceived to provide a snapshot of the distribution of planktonic organisms in the world ocean, providing 'A global-scale study of morphological, genetic, and functional biodiversity of plankton organisms in relation to the changing physico-chemical parameters of the oceans' (Karsenti et al., 2011). The expedition took place from September 2009 to March 2012, spanned the majority of the world's oceans, and included, besides a large array of biological sampling, hydrographic measurements, optical measurements of surface hyper-spectral particulate absorption and attenuation, hyper-spectral reflectance and HPLC pigments.E. Karsenti, S.G. Acinas, P. Bork, C. Bowler, C. De Vargas, J. Raes, and 22 co-authors, A holistic approach to marine eco-systems biology, PLoS Biol. 9, e1001177, (2011), doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001177.

The Australian Marine Quaternary Program is a loose association of researchers who visited the Geology Department (now called Department of Earth and Marine Sciences) at the Australian National University (ANU) since approximately 1990, when Patrick De Deckker took on the charter to work on the marine Quaternary record of the Australasian region as part of a new initiative in the Geology Department. This resource provides a list of theses and papers published in international and national refereed journals by those associated with the group.

The operation of the Wastewater Treatment Plants and the discharge of treated wastewater to the marine environment is conducted under Licence Conditions set by the Department of Environment and Conservation. The Licence Conditions include requirements to: Measure treated wastewater flows and associated contaminant loads to ensure maximum nutrient loads are not exceeded; and Undertake an annual summer survey of ocean and beach water quality (nutrients, primary productivity and bacteria indicators) in the vicinity of the ocean outlets. This metadata record outlines all the annual reports from Perth Coastal Waters Study (1992) onwards. An indicative study area that includes PLOOM Summer Water Quality, Seasonal, Trial, Compliance, and Drogue Program Sites has also been compiled to provide a spatial reference to the work. Ocean Reef, Sepia, and Swanbourne are the location of these outlets.

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2307 See the link below for public details on this project. ---- Public Summary from Project ---- The project investigates microbial life in the Southern Ocean. The studies will investigate two areas - the role of bacteria in the regeneration of the important nutrient silica via decomposition of planktonic biomass and to assess the importance of prokaryotic polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) entering the marine food web from natural communities in Antarctic sea ice and the Southern Ocean. Project objectives: 1. Investigate the role of bacteria in the colonisation and decomposition of phytoplankton and concomitant redispersal of silica from phytoplankton in seawater of the Southern Ocean at various different latitudes. Validate real-time PCR (5-prime nuclease PCR assay) for rapid quantification of key bacterial found in seawater to determine their association with phytoplankton decomposition and silica redispersal. Significance: Recent studies (Bidle and Azam, 1999) demonstrate that much silica regeneration in seawater is due to bacterial enzymatic activity and that diatom decomposition and silica release is highly accelerated in the presence of an active colonising bacterial population. The formation of bacterial biofilms and production of extracellular enzymes on phytoplanktic detritus and aggregates appears to lead to the direct breakdown of proteins and polysaccharides which hold together the diatom frustules. In the Southern Ocean this process could be significant as the foodweb there is sustained by phytoplanktonic (mostly diatom) primary productivity (Bunt 1963) whether it be in sea-ice or in the pelagic zone. If silica redispersal does not occur diatoms would instead eventually become buried in sediment with silica supplies becoming limited, except that supplied by aeolian and terrigenous input. In the marine environment half of primary-produced organic matter is degraded by bacteria (Cole et al., 1988). Thus the bacterial decomposition of diatom biomass and subsequent release of dissolved silica should be an important and relatively rapid process in Southern Ocean waters. At this stage there is still limited data on the role of bacteria in regeneration of silica in the overall marine environment. The study of Bidle and Azam (1999) examined seawater off of California and mostly examined the process itself. Currently, the role of specific bacteria is being examined by Kay Bidle (personal communication) and John Bowman is supplying various marine bacteria to assess this. In the proposed study we wish to examine the role of bacteria in the Southern Ocean in the decomposition of diatom biomass, rate of release of dissolved silica and bacterial groups involved in the process. This research should reveal some fundamental knowledge on a integral role of bacteria in Southern Ocean ecosystems. In order to assess the bacterial role in silica redispersal we wish to use three molecular ecological techniques: fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH), denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and real-time PCR. FISH and DGGE analysis are well established in John Bowmans laboratory and are being used routinely for analysis of Antarctic and Tasmanian natural samples (seawater and sediment). The real-time PCR analysis which can be used as a sensitive quantitative assay for bacterial populations in natural samples is currently in development using a recently purchased Rotorgene (Corbett Research) instrument. The method has been used to great effect in measuring rapidly bacterial populations in seawater (eg., Suzuki et al. 2000). Using these methods will allow us to accurately measure changes in bacterial populations during colonisation and decomposition of the diatom biomass during the silica redispersal experiments. There are two data files associated with this project. Part 1: Total of 9 files: File 1. Seawater sample data - information from two cruises in 2000 and 2001 - includes position