Boat World News

Plankton communities completely turn over in a matter of days – they’re very reactive to environmental changes....

Citizen ‘science’ by yachties sailing between New Zealand and the Pacific islands is providing great insights into plankton populations.

Dr Xavier Pochon, a marine scientist at the Cawthron Institute, says plankton are “massively important”. “They are the base of the food chain. Without plankton, life on Earth would be very different. They generate 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe. We always thought trees and forests were the key originators, but plankton is critical.”

Plankton are also a key indicator of changes in ocean conditions. “Plankton communities completely turn over in a matter of days – they’re very reactive to environmental changes, such as fluctuations in temperature, salinity and acidity.”

With the samples collected by citizen sailors or ‘planktonauts’ and new sampling techniques to isolate DNA, scientists use cutting-edge sequencing tools to rapidly see how the plankton community changes, where and how fast.

This could be a game changer for climate change computer models. A lot of those models are based on satellite data, says Pochon, and the real biological data collected through the plankton programme has the potential to significantly increase the precision of these models.

The work started three years ago, following the work done by French scientists using Sir Peter Blake’s former vessel Seamaster (now Tara) to study the marine environment. But using a single scientific ship is expensive and cannot capture plankton diversity through space and time. So the scientists reached out to the sailing community and formed Plankton Planet.

At any one time, there are approximately 10,000 people sailing around the world. In New Zealand, hundreds leave Opua in the

Far North in May, travelling to Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia, coming back six months later.

Pochon says those trips aren’t random. “The sailors follow regular routes. That means they can provide lots of readings and measurements that give a good picture of changes over time in the same area.”

He says the work is really fascinating and has attracted significant international interest, with world-leading marine plankton experts attending the first Plankton Planet workshop last year in Auckland through a Royal Society seeding grant.

“It is an absolute privilege to interact with these sailors, they’re really keen and curious people. They are natural engineers, explorers and passionate advocates for a healthy ocean. They have an interesting way of looking at life, they are bound to interpret oceanic patterns differently than scentists and generate new science questions.”

For more information call Dr Xavier Pochon at 03 548 2319 email xavier.pochon@cawthron.org.nz or visit www.planktonplanet.org