Basin-Scale Underway Quantitative Survey of Surface Microplankton Using Affordable Collection and Imaging Tools Deployed From Tara

Abstract

World ocean plankton quantitative biodiversity data are still severely limited due to the high cost and logistical constraints associated to oceanographic vessels and collection/analytic devices. Here, we report the first use of an affordable and open-source plankton collection and imaging kit designed for citizen biological oceanography, composed of a high-speed surface plankton net, the Coryphaena, together with a portable in-flux automated imaging device, the PlanktoScope. We deployed this kit in December 2020 along a latitudinal transect across the Atlantic Ocean on board the schooner Tara, during the first Leg of her ‘Mission Microbiomes’. The citizen-science instruments were benchmarked and compared at sea to state-of-the-art protocols applied in previous Tara expeditions, i.e. on-board water pumping and filtration system and the FlowCam to respectively sample and image total micro-plankton. Results show that the Coryphaena can collect pristine micro-plankton at speed up to 11 knots, generating quantitative imaging data comparable to those obtained from total, on-board filtered water, and that the PlanktoScope and FlowCam provide comparable data. Overall, the new citizen tools provided a complete picture of surface micro-plankton composition, biogeography and biogeochemistry, opening the way toward a global, cooperative, and frugal plankton observatory network at planetary scale.

Plankton Planet: A frugal, cooperative measure of aquatic life at the planetary scale

“…The PlanktoKit 1.0, which costs less than $3,000 in parts, consists of a cruising-speed plankton collection system (von Ammon et al, 2020), a PlanktoScope (Pollina et al, 2022), a new cost-effective plankton DNA collection-kit we call the 'Lamprey', and a tablet computer to drive the PlanktoScope, record all contextual and meta-data, and visualize and record plankton images and movies. We have shown that these frugal tools deployed from sailing boats can generate consistent, planetary scale genetic (this paper) and morphological (Meŕiguet et al, 2022) data, paving the way for the Plankton Planet vision (Box 1). Deployment of the first kits on key navigation loops and routes will start in 2023 in the Atlantic oceans as part of the European research program AtlantEco.…”

“…This requests uncomfortable sailing operations impacting the cruising speed, and it was identified as the primary limiting factor for denser sampling. We have therefore been working on the design of new miniaturized high-speed nets (von Ammon et al, 2020;Meŕiguet et al, 2022), inspired by our successful experience during the Tara Pacific expedition (Gorsky et al, 2019), as well as simple manual pumping system allowing aspiration of seawater at cruising speed, followed by filtration through a small net system installed on board. The latter device has the advantage of being able to collect pristine water that can also be used to extract DNA/RNA from the smaller plankton size fractions enriched in bacteria, archaea and viruses.…”

“…Over the last few years, we have thus developed the PlanktoScope (see companion papers by Pollina et al, 2022 andMeŕiguet et al, 2022), an affordable, miniaturized, modular and evolvable, open source imaging platform for citizen oceanography. For a cost of less than 1000 US$ in parts, the PlanktoScope allows both quantitative imaging of microplankton communities through a fluidic module before their storage for total DNA/ RNA extraction and genetic analyses in the lab, and high-quality imaging/filming of individual cells or organisms under different types of illumination.…”