The OCEANOMICS project aims at promoting, in France, a rational and sustainable use of one of the most important ecosystems in terms of global ecological changes and bioresources: ocean plankton.

The OCEANOMICS project aims at promoting, in France, a rational and sustainable use of one of the most important ecosystems in terms of global ecological changes and bioresources: ocean plankton. This problem is not a simple matter: the relatively diluted biomass of planktonic systems is still poorly known with regard to biodiversity and biotechnological potential. The global geographic range of marine plankton comprises more than 98% of the biospheric volume and plankton distribution in French territorial waters is 20 times larger than the nation’s land area. In its exploratory phase, the OCEANOMICS project builds on the success of the Tara Oceans expedition, a public / private initiative that collected samples and eco-morpho-genetic data in 11 fractions of organismic sizes covering all planktonic communities – from viruses to animals – over more than 150 sites and 3 depths across the global oceans.