Colomban de Vargas, in pursuit of the infinitely small in the oceans

2023-11-11 19:00:13
Colomban de Vargas, director of the Tara Global Ocean Systems Ecology & Evolution research federation. In Roscoff (Finistère), April 4, 2023. TARA OCEAN FOUNDATION

He wears the particular smile – a hint of mystery and a touch of triumph – of the magician who is about to pull a dinosaur out of his hat. In the imposing library of the Roscoff biological station, in Finistère, Colomban de Vargas reveals his treasure: a compact, robust microscope, with durable materials, easy to handle, even to dismantle and repair if necessary, and efficient of course : enough to get started with observing plankton and get started in « science frugale ». Because this is the concept of this researcher, research director at the CNRS, twice distinguished by the Academy of Sciences since 2017 and who directs the research federation Tara Global Ocean Systems Ecology & Evolution (GOSEE), a structure placed under the supervision of eighteen research organizations.

Each liter of seawater contains between ten and one hundred billion viruses, bacteria, protists, microalgae, jellyfish. However, the gigantic mass of small marine organisms which make up plankton, and make the planet blue a living world, is still poorly understood. By developing research instruments capable of being placed in many hands, by increasing the number of samples taken all around the globe, by producing quantities of freely accessible genetic data – provided that significant resources are invested –, the ocean microbiome could reveal some of its secrets.

“We could equip tens of thousands of boaters, fishermen, aquaculturists, sailors on cargo ships… Currently, we do not know how to measure the complexity of this biodiversity, but we are entering a period of great discoveries. We are at the beginning of planetary biology, that is to say of life on the time scale of the planet. the researcher told a few journalists on June 23, 2022. A year later, the idea has partly taken shape. Certainly, crowds of « seatizens »as Colomban de Vargas calls them, have not yet set out on the waves armed with their plankton net, but the first class of four biodiversity ambassadors is ready to popularize the idea of ​​a citizen oceanography program dedicated to to plankton.

Four aspiring biodiversity officer volunteers

On September 26, in Roscoff, a conference marks the launch of the Bougainville mission. The four volunteers on whom it is based – young people of 23 in their impeccable white military uniforms – demonstrate their impatience to participate in the adventure. They have since embarked on two overseas support and assistance vessels of the French Navy, the D’Entrecasteaux and the Champlain. One patrols the Pacific near French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the other around Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, in rarely studied marine areas.

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