Global scale surface meso-plankton dataset collected with Deck Net and imaged with Flowcam during the Tara Pacific Expedition

Sampling event
Latest version published by EcoTaxa on Mar 11, 2026 EcoTaxa

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 414 records in English (419 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (35 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (10 KB)

Description

The Tara Pacific expedition sampled differents ecosystems of the oceans during a two-year expedition (2016-2018), collecting environmental data and surface plankton of Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, from viruses to metazoans, on board the 36-metre Tara Schooner. Surface microplankton were collected using a custom-built water pumping system called the Dolphin, designed for use while sailing at high speed. The pumped water was filtered through a 20 µm mesh net (Deck-Net) installed on the deck of the schooner Tara.

See  https://doi.org/10.17882/102697 for more details.

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 414 records.

2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
414
ExtendedMeasurementOrFact 
32433
Occurrence 
10673

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Mériguet Z, Lombard F, Bourdin G, Jalabert L, Bun O, Caray--Counil L, Elineau A, Gorsky G, The Tara Pacific Consortium (2026). Global scale surface meso-plankton dataset collected with Deck Net and imaged with Flowcam during the Tara Pacific Expedition. Version 1.4. EcoTaxa. Samplingevent dataset. https://ipt.data-terra.org/resource?r=tara-pac-flowcam-decknet&v=1.4

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is EcoTaxa. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: d977ef4a-94ec-4d26-aa9a-ad665907f8fd.  EcoTaxa publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF France.

Keywords

Plankton; Imaging; EcoTaxa; DeckNet; Flowcam; Samplingevent

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

Global scale surface micro-plankton dataset collected with Deck Net and imaged with FlowCam during the Tara Pacific Expedition https://www.seanoe.org/data/00915/102697/ UTF-8 TSV, CSV

Contacts

Zoé Mériguet
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
FR
Fabien Lombard
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
FR
Guillaume Bourdin
  • Originator
School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine
Orono, Maine 04401, USA
FR
Laetitia Jalabert
  • Originator
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Institut de la Mer de Villefranche
FR
Olivier Bun
  • Originator
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
FR
Louis Caray--Counil
  • Originator
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
FR
Amanda Elineau
  • Originator
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Institut de la Mer de Villefranche
FR
Gaby Gorsky
  • Originator
Sorbonne Université; Sorbonne Université/CNRS, Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche
FR
The Tara Pacific Consortium

Geographic Coverage

See coordinates

Bounding Coordinates South West [-35.61, -179.063], North East [45.236, 178.933]

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Kingdom Animalia, Bacteria
Phylum Annelida, Ciliophora, Cyanobacteria, Foraminifera, Mollusca, Rotifera
Subphylum Crustacea, Tunicata
Class Acantharia, Appendicularia, Bacillariophyceae, Cyanophyceae, Dictyochophyceae, Dinophyceae
Subclass Copepoda, Coscinodiscophycidae
Order Asterolamprales, Gonyaulacales, Gymnodiniales, Nassellaria, Spumellaria, Thalassionematales
Suborder Tintinnina
Family Amphilithidae, Bacillariaceae, Codonellidae, Pyrocystaceae, Rhabdosphaeraceae, Rhizosoleniaceae, Undellidae, Xystonellidae, Zoothamniidae
Genus Amphisolenia, Amphorides, Amplectella, Asterionellopsis, Bacteriastrum, Ceratocorys, Chaetoceros, Cladopyxis, Climacodium, Codonaria, Codonellopsis, Corethron, Cyttarocylis, Dactyliosolen, Dadayiella, Diatoma, Dictyocysta, Dinophysis, Ditylum, Epiplocylis, Eucampia, Eutintinnus, Fragilariopsis, Guinardia, Helicotheca, Hemiaulus, Lacrymaria, Metacylis, Micracanthodinium, Neoceratium, Nitzschia, Ornithocercus, Oxytoxum, Phalacroma, Planktoniella, Podolampas, Poroecus, Protoperidinium, Pseudo-nitzschia, Pterosperma, Pyrophacus, Rhabdonella, Rhabdonellopsis, Richelia, Salpingella, Steenstrupiella
Species Chaetoceros peruvianus, Chaetoceros protuberans, Codonellopsis orthoceras, Coscinodiscus sol, Hemidiscus cuneiformis, Ornithocercus heteroporus, Ornithocercus magnificus, Ornithocercus quadratus, Ornithocercus steinii, Tripos candelabrum, Tripos furca, Tripos fusus, Tripos geniculatus, Tripos limulus, Tripos pentagonus

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2016-06-10 / 2018-08-31

Additional Metadata

Acknowledgements Special thanks to the Tara Ocean Foundation, the R/V Tara crew and the Tara Pacific Expedition Participants (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3777760). We are keen to thank the commitment of the following institutions for their financial and scientific support that made this unique Tara Pacific Expedition possible: CNRS, PSL, CSM, EPHE, Genoscope, CEA, Inserm, Université Côte d’Azur, ANR, agnès b., UNESCO-IOC, the Veolia Foundation, the Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation, Région Bretagne, Billerudkorsnas, AmerisourceBergen Company, Lorient Agglomération, Oceans by Disney, L’Oréal, Biotherm, France Collectivités, Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM), Etienne Bourgois, and the Tara Ocean Foundation teams. Tara Pacific would not exist without the continuous support of the participating institutes. The authors also particularly thank Serge Planes, Denis Allemand, and the Tara Pacific consortium. We thank the EMBRC collection CCPv for sample storage. This work was supported by EMBRC-France, whose French state funds are managed by the ANR within the Investments of the Future program under reference ANR-10-INBS-02. Support was also provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF Biological Oceanography program (grant #2025402 to LKB) and the NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry program (grants #80NSSC20K1641). FL was also funded by the Institut Universitaire de France and co-funding by the European Union BIOcean5D GA#101059915 and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme “Atlantic Ecosystems Assessment, Forecasting and Sustainability” (AtlantECO) Grant ID: 862923. FL, OB, ZM are also funded by the ANR grant SmartBiodiv (grant ANR-21-AAFI-0002). The authors particularly thank the Villefranche-sur-Mer Quantitative Imaging Platform (PIQv). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 
Purpose Surface water samples were collected using a custom-built water pumping system named “Dolphin”. It consists of a stainless-steel pyramidal frame with a front aperture of 0.04 m wide and 0.40 m high, deployed from the starboard of the ship. The Dolphin was used underway while sailing and was connected to a peristaltic pump (max flow rate = 3 m3 h−1) mounted on the deck of the schooner Tara. The system was equipped with a flowmeter to record flow rates. The pumped water was filtered through a 20 μm net (Deck156 Net) that was mounted on the wall of the wet lab. Before entering the Deck-Net, the pumped water passes through a 2000 µm mesh filter. Deck-Net pumping lasted 1 to 2 hours, depending on plankton concentration. Samples were divided into subsamples, which included one subsample for quantitative micro-plankton imaging analysis on live samples and the remaining for other specific protocols.
Maintenance Description periodic review of origin data
Alternative Identifiers d977ef4a-94ec-4d26-aa9a-ad665907f8fd
https://ipt.data-terra.org/resource?r=tara-pac-flowcam-decknet