The Tara Ocean Foundation: Explore to understand – Share to change

For 20 years, the Foundation has been supporting innovative Ocean science, in partnership with world-leading research centres, to study marine biodiversity, as well as observe and anticipate the impacts of climate change and pollution.

Faced with the urgent need to make the protection of the Ocean a common responsibility, the Foundation raises public awareness of the challenges facing the Ocean, educates young generations, facilitates international cooperation and mobilises policymakers.

Thanks to its Special Observer Status at the United Nations, the Foundation actively participates in crucial decisions in favour of the Ocean.

Tara Europa – TREC (2023-2024) expedition: Understanding the impact of human activities on the biodiversity of European coastal ecosystems

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.

Scientific objectives:

• Better understand the impact of pollutants on marine biodiversity.
• Predict the impact of local and global climate change on the microbiome.
• Inventory and map the microorganisms present, define the interactions and the role of each species.
• Discover new interactions and new species