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After having sailed the seas for two years, the schooner Tara made her return with great fanfare to her port home base, in Lorient. As on each of its returns, the sailboat was greeted triumphantly.
On each return, dozens of boats escort the schooner Tara to the harbor of Lorient (Morbihan). In its holds, 25,000 samples, collected in several seas around the world. The 36-meter schooner houses three laboratories. “When it’s windy or swell, it can be more complicated“, confides Samuel Chaffronbiologist and researcher at the CNRS. Impossible to see them with the naked eye, but the microorganisms are there. Plankton often unknown, but very important. “He is at the base of the food chain, (…) up to the mammalian fish and us, the man. So it’s really important to understand how this plankton is going to be impacted by this ongoing climate change.“, he adds.
Plankton is a source of life, but not only. Thanks to him, the ocean captures 30% of our carbon emissions, as much as terrestrial plants. How ? This is the investigation carried out by Tara for nearly two years, in Latin America, Antarctica and along the West African coast. She crossed 14 countries and 70,000 km. Each new expedition is a new scientific and human adventure. Dozens of scientists followed one another on the laboratory boat. This international cooperation aims to better decode changes in ecosystems. The fruits of their labor will be shipped to laboratories around the world. The first results will be released in two years.