For the past four years, scientists have been under the sea, collecting tiny creatures from all the world's oceans and analyzing them.
This expedition, on board the schooner TARA, set out to map the biodiversity of a wide range of planktonic organisms. They collected 35,000 samples and observed the organisms, exploring their interactions and how they are affected by their environment, primarily the temperature and acidity of the oceans.
"This is the largest DNA sequencing effort ever done for ocean science," says Patrick Wincker, from Genoscope, CEA, in a post. "Analyses revealed around 40 million genes, the vast majority of which are new to science."
A group of studies using Tara Oceans expedition data found that plankton, which form the base of the oceanic food web, are more sensitive to global warming-related changes in the oceans than previously thought.