For two consecutive years, 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, conceived by EMBL in collaboration with the Tara OceanS consortium, the Tara Ocean Foundation and more than 70 scientific institutions. During this expedition, a parallel study of biodiversity on land, with EMBL’s mobile laboratories, and at sea, with the schooner Tara, is carried out.
For the first time with the TREC expedition, researchers from all over Europe are studying life at all scales, from viruses to animals, along the entire European coast, in order to provide a much richer and deeper understanding of how these ecosystems respond to natural and anthropogenic challenges.