Tara Oceans Expedition Comes To Dublin

The Tara – a unique ship for scientific discovery and adventure

Tara Expeditions, a non-profit association based in France,  has been organizing missions aboard the research schooner “Tara” for the past 9 years with the goal of learning more about the impact of climate change on ecosystems.

One of its main objectives is to increase environmental awareness among the general public, and particularly young people through the Tara Junior outreach program. Here in the School of Biology and Environmental Science, we have a close association with the group, through the involvement of Dr Emmanuel Reynaud.

If you would like to see the Tara vessel,  (36 m long, 10m large expedition sailing boat) up close, it will be moored at the East Pier, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, from the 10th -13th July, 2012.

More Details

The Tara will arrive on the 10^th of July 2012 at 4pm and will leave on the 13^th of July2012 in the evening.

Captain: Loic Valette

Welcoming Flotilla – 4pm the 10th of July

Welcoming Party – 6.30 pm 10th of July on invitation

Guided tours aboard the “Tara” vessel by a crew member – 11^th and 12^th of July

Berth: East Pier number 1

Organised Visit (VIP, Press, Partners): from 10 to11 am(up to 96 people in total)

General public visits then until 6 pm public visits on first come first served basis.

3 to 4 groups of 8 to 12 people/h (up to 336 people in total)

The accessibility is limited on the boat.

Lorient shipyard

Film Premiere “Planet Ocean”

A film by Yann Arthus-Bertand and Michael Pitiot produced by Hope, with the support of Omega, in association with Tara Expeditions.

Film screening + round table – 12th of July 2012

Venue: Assembly Room, County Hall,Marine Road,Dún Laoghaire

Up to 150 people on invitation

6.30 – 7.00 pm Reception

7.00 – 7.20 Welcoming opened by the Lord Mayor of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, the Ambassador of France in Ireland, Vice-President for Research at University College Dublin and a Comhairle na nÓg representative.

7.20 – 9 pm “PlanetOcean” Movie

9 – 9.30 Panel discussion open by Prof. Desmond Fitzgerald (UCD) with Dr Eric Karsenti, Scientific Project Director of the Tara Oceans Expedition and Dr Emmanuel G. Reynaud, UCD scientist who coordinate the imaging platform onboard Tara during the entire expedition.

World Longest Exhibition of Tara  Oceans  Expedition pictures

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.

115 000kms, 27 000 samples, 100 scientists, 50 countries crossed in 2 ½ years.

Outside Exhibition – July

50 posters

Part 1: “TaraOceans, A Worldwide Portrait of Marine Plankton”

Part 2: “Tara, a scientific vessel”

Venues : East Pier, Battery, Dún LaoghaireHarbour

Inside exhibition in the lighthouse – 10^th to 16^th of July

Part 3: “20,000 leagues under the sea, a school project”. Exhibition of creative drawings and sculptures by pupils fromNewparkComprehensiveSchool

15 posters

This facility will be open to the public on a restricted basis.

Inside exhibition in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland – July and August 2012

Part 4: TaraOceans, a coral view

15 posters

Part 1, 2 and 4: Exhibitions of pictures selected by the Tara Ocean Imaging coordinator, Dr Emmanuel G. Reynaud, SFI /Stokes Lecturer at UCD.

Conference about the Tara Oceans Expedition

“TaraOceans : a worldwide journey portraying marine plankton”

By Emmanuel G. Reynaud, UCD,Dublin+ Q&A

Venue: National Maritime Museum of Ireland-Dún Laoghaire

13^th of July – 7 pm

Up to 140 people

Everyone is welcome.

 Exhibition “From Pole to Pole” by Vincent Hilaire

Venue: National MaritimeMuseumofIreland-Dún Laoghaire

Venue: Brent Pope exhibition space, Number 5 (Corner Unit) – Spencer Dock

Mayor Street Upper -Dublin1

http://www.spencerdock.ie/events/events_outsidein

Exhibition dates: 7^th July to 23^rd July 2012
Everyone is welcome

www.vincenthilaire.fr

 Projection at the Art Park of Tara Oceans Expedition Images

By Emmanuel G. Reynaud, UCD,Dublin

Venue: Art Park, Spencer Docks

http://www.spencerdock.ie/events/the_art_park

http://www.spencerdock.ie/events/maser_is_homemade

Dates: to be planned

Everyone is welcome.

_____________________________________________________________

CURIOUS 

One Image from Tara Oceans– Aine McKeon/Anika Mostaert/Emmanuel G. Reynaud

Health Research Board wall mural project running in conjunction with ESOF/Dublin City of Science.  The images will be located on TCD buildings in the City Centre – all around Pearse Street

http://www.hrb.ie/curious

Other linked events:

ISAF Youth World Sailing Championships 2012 (July 12-21, 2012) – 13^th of July 2012, French day

Dublin, City of Science 2012, Euroscience Open Forum 2012 (July 11 – 15) – 12^th of July, Eric Karsenti – Keynote Address

UCD Imagine Science Film Festival (July 5 – 17, 2012)

14th of July 2012, Bastille Day

For more information on the Tara Oceans Expedition

http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/

List of partners

Tara Oceans Expedition

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council

Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company

National Maritime Museum of Ireland-Dún Laoghaire

Science Foundation Ireland

Embassy of France in Ireland

University College Dublin

UCD Imagine Science Film Festival

You are invited to a Free Screening of OCÉANS to mark International Earth Day

UCD Imagine Science Film Festival and the French Embassy in Ireland in partnership with Veolia Environnement and the UCD Earth Institute will screen the French film OCÉANS on Earth Day, Sunday 22nd April in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 at 8.30pm. 

The spectacular award-winning film OCÉANS takes the audience deep into the very waters that sustain all of mankind—exploring the amazing creatures that live within and highlighting the often harsh realities of this world. Featuring
spectacular and previously unseen footage captured by the latest underwater technologies OCÉANS puts audiences in the very heart of the action, leaping with dolphins and swimming shoulder-to-fin with the great white shark.
OCÉANS is not a documentary but a wild opera; each diver cameraman creates fragments of the score creating a song of the sea.

A pre-screening panel discussion will take place with the Director Jacques Cluzaud and Scientific Advisor, Dr Francois Sarano along with Irish scientists Professor Chris Bean and Professor Frederic Dias from UCD’s Earth Institute
and Charlotte O’Kelly from TechWorks Marine before the film commences at sundown.

Free tickets are available at: http://e1.ie/2w6

Reef – Symbiosis

To survive underwater some animals have developed symbiotic relationships with other organisms. Cleaner shrimp offer their services to bigger animals, climbing inside their mouths to do the job. Others live in or on another animal.

This underwater video is taken from the DVD included in Scubazoo’s book ‘Reef’

A shark’s life

Starry Smooth Hound Sharks (Image: SBES)

In recent years, scientists have uncovered a lot of new information about shark physiology, but the day-to-day life of sharks remains fairly mysterious. Most shark species are very difficult to study because they travel quickly over long distances, sometimes deep in the sea. They live in a world that is largely inaccessible to humans.

We do know that sharks are solitary animals, for the most part. They typically live and hunt by themselves, joining up with other sharks only in certain circumstances, such as mating. Some sharks will form schools on occasion, however. Researchers aren’t really sure why this occurs because sharks don’t really need protection from predators and they don’t feed in schools. At this point, it’s still unclear why sharks behave this way. In any case, the occurrence is very rare. Most of the time, sharks swim alone.

When they hunt, most sharks rely on the element of surprise in some way. In some camouflaged bottom-dwelling sharks, such as the various wobbegong species, this is a passive exercise. The shark blends in with the ocean floor, waiting for its prey. When a fish gets close enough, the shark opens its mouth wide and swallows the fish whole.

In active hunters, the element of surprise works a little bit differently. Great whites and other sharks that hunt bigger animals proceed very cautiously when approaching their prey. Once it has found a potential meal, the shark will circle at some distance, sizing up the situation. When it is ready, the shark moves in quickly, landing a good bite before the animal knows what’s happening. Often, this first attack is sufficient to bring down the prey. Researchers have observed great whites behaving this way when hunting sea lions — they will take one good bite, and then wait for the sea lion to die from blood loss. This sort of hunting takes a lot of energy out of a shark, so these species usually won’t feed more than a couple times a week. Sharks that feed on smaller prey typically eat a few times every day.

On rare occasions, active sharks will cooperate in a hunt. Researchers have observed this phenomenon primarily in sevengill sharks. When these sharks hunt large fur seals, they rely on strength in numbers — one large fur seal is too big for a single shark to take down itself. The sharks form a wide ring around a single seal, and slowly move in. When they get close enough, one shark will suddenly attack, and the rest will follow. This sort of behavior sometimes occurs in other shark species, but it is extremely rare.

Scientists also know that migration plays a big part in the lives of most shark species. The main reason most sharks migrate is that their food migrates. Different marine animals gather in certain areas throughout the year, for breeding, to lay eggs and other reasons. Sharks remember these annual patterns and return to these areas every year to take advantage of the population boom. Sharks will also remember human activity when it involves food supplies. Many species gather around fishing boats, for example, because they know fishermen might discard extra bait and small catches.

Source: How Stuff Works

Learn more about studying zoology at UCD

The Black Pearl

Jennifer Coughlan   is a senior technical officer working in the Marine Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology Lab (MARBEE).  In today’s post, Jennifer tells us about research work she was involved with in Rangiroa, French Polynesia’s largest atoll.

Some of the larger inhabitants of Rangiroa

 

The Black Pearl is not only Johnny Depp’s famous pirate ship, but also a valuable commodity throughout the Pacific. We travelled to Rangiroa atoll off the coast of Tahiti in French Polynesia to investigate the larval distribution processes behind the over-exploited Black-Lipped Pearl Oyster (Pinctada margaritifera).

Setting out lines of spat as microscopic larvae settled on “ropes” of plastic

Not much is known about the dispersal of these microscopic larvae once spawning has occurred.  Working with the staff of the Service de la Perliculture land-based hatchery, we found that calcein was a nontoxic, inexpensive and durable fluorescent marker to track the larvae in the plankton. We hope that this will be useful in future black pearl oyster fishery management as it will give us more insight into their ecology and subsequent survival after release into the wild.

Induction of spawning in P. Margaritifera by transferring adult oysters from a cold room to sun-heated water at 37C!

Unwrapping a fishy story

SBES researcher, Dana Miller

Dana Miller  is a postgraduate student currently working on a project examining the trends and trajectories of Ireland’s seafood industry: working towards sustainability. She recently published a paper with her supervisor, Dr Stefano Mariani entitled “Smoke, mirrors and mislabelled cod: poor transparency in the European seafood industry” (1) which generated a lot of media interest and resulted in a Channel Four Dispatches investigation Fish Unwrapped.

“In light of recent findings from North American scientists using the same approach, it seems mislabeling seafood is pervasive on a global scale,” says Miller. “This, coupled with the enormous rise in seafood demand, raises alarm. There is an increasing need for effective and sustainable seafood industry management and especially for transparency within the seafood industry itself on an international level.” (2)

In today’s post Dana tells us a little more about her research:

As an island nation, Ireland is connected to and responsible for the ocean and seas that surround it. Commercial fishing has historically been one of the major anthropogenic activities linking Irish society to the marine environment. Using methods derived from ecology, sociology and molecular genetics, aspects of the past and present functioning of the Irish seafood industry are being investigated. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the roles and influences that different actors and activities have within the industry and to examine linkages among identified processes. Intertwined with both local and foreign fisheries production, the Irish seafood industry has the potential to either sustainably contribute to Ireland’s national food security, or to willfully participate in the destruction of the world’s last major wild food resource.

For more information check out Marbee on the SBES website.

1. Miller D.M. & Mariani S. (2010): “Smoke, mirrors and mislabelled cod: poor transparency in the European seafood industry”. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, DOI:10.1890/090212.

2. DNA barcoding reveals mislabeled cod and haddock in Dublin, ESA press release, 22/04/110

Mediterranean Dawn

"Mediterranean Dawn" Dr Maria Sala-Bozano

IRCSET-funded Dr Maria Sala-Bozano took on the Mediterranean for a three-year investigation of population structure and life-history variation of the ‘striped sea bream’ under the supervision of Dr Stefano Mariani.

"Pesce Fresco" Striped Sea Bream

In order to collect adequate samples over a broad geographical spread, the two SBES researchers had the opportunity to visit several places in Italy, Spain, Croatia and Greece, and cooperated with local fishermen and anglers.

For more details, see: SALA-BOZANO M., KETMAIER V. & MARIANI S. (2009): “Contrasting signals from multiple markers illuminate population connectivity in a marine fish”. Molecular Ecology. 18: 4811–4826.
SALA-BOZANO M. & MARIANI S. (2011) “Life-history variation in a marine teleost across a heterogeneous landscape. Estuarine, Coastal, Shelf Science. in press”.

Ray-zor sharp vision

Image by Edward Farrell

This image shows the eye of a spotted ray (Raja montagui) and its intricately shaped iris called the pupillary operculum. This adaptation makes the ray’s eye very sensitive to movements within a large visual field. The ray was caught during a survey of the Irish Sea aboard the RV Celtic Voyager, a 31.4m multi-purpose research vessel.

Sharks that circle our shores

Starry Smooth Hound Sharks

SHARKS! WHAT image does that word evoke in your mind? Blade-like fins circling in tropical waters? In Ireland we often think of sharks as being elsewhere in the world, yet we have several species on our doorstep.

Irish waters host over 40 species of “elasmobranch” (or shark, skate or ray) and of those about 28 are sharks, according to Dr Edward Farrell.

His recent doctoral thesis at University College Dublin’s School of Biology Environmental Science and the Marine Institute looked at the abundance and life-history of one particular group of sharks – the smooth-hounds – and came up with some surprising findings.

Edward Farrell displaying an example

Click here to find out more.