Every year there are phytoplankton blooms which take place around the Patagonian shelf and shelf-break, this bloom is so big that you can see it from space!
What are these phytoplankton and why is it important to study them? What was it like to be on board Tara during this part of the Mission Microbiomes? Did they actually find the coccolithophores, the phytoplankton responsible for the bloom?
To know more about these organisms and what was involved in finding them along the shores of South America, we are speaking with Flora Vincent, today’s guest.
Flora is a researcher who was with the Weizmann Institute as she embarked on Tara but has since set up her lab within the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany to carry on studying a particular type of marine microorganisms, the protists.
She was the chief scientist in this leg of the Mission Microbiomes, the Tara Ocean Foundation latest expedition, as the boat followed the Argentinian coast from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. Flora shares with us her experience onboard as they set off to study a bloom of coccolithophores. From collaborating with the Argentinian Hossay schooner, to chasing the bloom around the ocean and making bets to guess how many they would find… Flora relates her journey and the memories she made along the way and she also tells us about Ana Maria Gayoso, to whom this leg was dedicated.
Additional information and resources:
YouTube videos:
Women in science: the Gayoso experiment.,
Mission Microbiomes: Gayoso experiment, chasing coccolithophores, part 1,
Mission Microbiomes: Gayoso experiment, chasing the coccolithophores, part 2
Mission Microbiomes: chasing coccolithophores, part 3
Blog posts: https://www.atlanteco.eu/post/the-bloom-of-coccolithophores-emiliania-huxleyi
Wikipedia page: Ana María Gayoso - Wikipedia
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The AtlantECO project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 862923. This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.