Preliminary PremièreUn new goal for Tara: Pacific corals – Le Figaro

From 2016 to 2018, the scientific schooner will travel 100,000 kilometers to study coral reefs are threatened by pollution.

the schooner Tara returns to service. This time it is to the Pacific Ocean the wind will prevail. An eleventh expedition, but the fourth large-scale, with one goal: listen coral reefs. Two years of navigation, 100,000 km planned, and on board by turnover, some 70 scientists from around the world and from all disciplines. “We will be advocates of reefs,” says Serge Planes, director of research at CNRS and Scientific Director of the Tara Pacific. “The coral is 0.2% of the ocean surface, but 30% of their biodiversity,” says the researcher who also heads the Labex (Excellence Laboratory) “coral” bringing together scientists from 9 French institutions referent on the subject. “A coral reef kilometer concentrates the equivalent of the marine biodiversity of all the French coast,” he continues.

Corals – 1400 species described to date – are also …