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Video length: 3 min
Environment: a smartphone game to help preserve marine wildlife
Environment: a smartphone game to help preserve marine wildlife
(France 2)
The “Play for plankton” application allows users to help scientists in their research on plankton in the Mediterranean. Meet the designers of this little game for a good cause, Wednesday July 10.
On her couch, on her balcony, and even at the bus stop… Claire sorts plankton on her smartphone. Without a mask or snorkel, it is possible to help science.I will connect all the planktons that look alike and that for me are part of the same family”explains the young woman. Each of the images on her screen comes from real plankton taken from the Mediterranean.
Usually, it’s scientists who sort these organisms, but thanks to the fun app “Play for plankton”, Claire does the work for them.
The research is being conducted in Villefranche-sur-Mer, in the Alpes-Maritimes. Every morning, fisherman Jean-Olivier Irisson heads out to the Mediterranean to collect plankton.The data that is in the game comes from these samples”explains the professor. To generate the plankton images, the organisms are then carefully arranged on a scanner in the laboratory. In 15 years, their quantity has decreased in the sea. “We hope to raise awareness among people (…), to make them aware of the role of this micro-organism which is important to preserve” explains Jean-Guy Escolivet, creator of the game.
