Programme of Events
Event Detail
Tara Oceans, A Worldwide Portrait of Marine Plankton
Dr Emmanuel G. Reynaud, SFI / UCD
East Pier, Battery, Dún Laoghaire Harbour
July 10th to August 3rd
Outdoor exhibition/ permanent
For more information check out
website
Pacific Ocean Diatom, by Luis Gutierrez-Herredia, Copyright: UCD, Tara Oceans, Date: 2011
Tara Oceans Expedition is the very first attempt to make a global study of marine plankton. Studying plankton is like taking the pulse of our planet. Recently, scientists have discovered the great importance of plankton for the climate. In a context of rapid physico-chemical changes, it is urgent to understand and predict the evolution of these particular ecosystems.
Plankton ecosystems contain a phenomenal reservoir of life: more than 10 billion organisms inhabit every liter of oceanic water, including viruses, prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes (protists), and metazoans. Plankton ecosystems thus, not only play critical roles in determining the Earth’s chemical, ecological and climatic states, but also represent an enormous but largely untapped source of unique organisms and bioactive compounds relevant for bioindustries involved in pharmaceutics, nutrition, cosmetics, bioenergy and nanotechnology.
On 31st of March 2012, the schooner Tara, equipped with new technology for sampling the entire plankton communities from viruses to animals, and benthic diversity in coral reef ecosystems came back to her home port, Lorient, France. After 115 000kms, ~27,800 biological samples, 100 scientists, 50 countries crossed in 2 ½ years.
This unique exhibition on the East Pier of Dún Laoghaire Harbour will present a worldwide view of marine plankton. Every image has been taken onboard Tara during the Tara Oceans Expedition from 2009 to 2012 by one of the team headed by Dr Emmanuel G. Reynaud, imaging coordinator and SFI/Stokes Lecturer based in University College Dublin.
Following the pier down to the battery, every ocean will offer some of its invisible treasures highlighting the incalculable importance of the invisible planktonic life forms that made the Earth we live on, the air we breathe.
The Invisible Plankton is the heart of the Carbon Cycle
The Invisible Plankton is our Past, our Present and hopefully our Future
Non-ticketed event
