RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Plankton Planet: ‘seatizen’ oceanography to assess open ocean life at the planetary scale JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2020.08.31.263442 DO 10.1101/2020.08.31.263442 A1 Colomban de Vargas A1 Thibaut Pollina A1 Sarah Romac A1 Noan Le Bescot A1 Nicolas Henry A1 Calixte Berger A1 Sébastien Colin A1 Nils Haëntjens A1 Margaux Carmichael A1 David Le Guen A1 Johan Decelle A1 Frédéric Mahé A1 Emmanuel Malpot A1 Carole Beaumont A1 Michel Hardy A1 the planktonauts , the Plankton Planet team A1 Damien Guiffant A1 Ian Probert A1 David F. Gruber A1 Andy Allen A1 Gabriel Gorsky A1 Mick Follows A1 Barry B. Cael A1 Xavier Pochon A1 Romain Troublé A1 Fabien Lombard A1 Emmanuel Boss A1 Manu Prakash YR 2020 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/01/2020.08.31.263442.abstract AB In every liter of seawater there are between 10 and 100 billion life forms, mostly invisible, called plankton, which form the largest and most dynamic ecosystem on our planet, at the heart of global ecological and economic processes. While physical and chemical parameters of planktonic ecosystems are fairly well measured and modelled at the planetary scale, but biological data are still scarce due to the extreme cost and relative inflexibility of the classical vessels and instruments used to explore marine biodiversity. Here we introduce ‘Plankton Planet’, an initiative whose goal is to merge the creativity of researchers, makers, and mariners to (i) develop frugal scientific instrumentation and protocols to assess the genetic and morphological diversity of plankton life, and (ii) organize their systematic deployment through fleets of volunteer sailors, fishermen, or cargo-ships to generate comparable and open-access plankton data across global and long-term spatio-temporal scales. As proof-of-concept, we show how 20 crews of sailors (“planktonauts”) were abl to sample plankton biomass from the world surface ocean in a single year, generating the first citizen-based, planetary dataset of plankton biodiversity based on DNA barcodes. The quality of this dataset is comparable to that generated by Tara Oceans and is not biased by the multiplication of samplers. This dataset has unveiled significant genetic novelty and can be used to explore the taxonomic and ecological diversity of plankton at both regional and global scales. This pilot project paves the way for construction of a miniaturized, modular, evolvable, affordable and open-source citizen field-platform that will allow systematic assessment of the eco/morpho/genetic variation of aquatic ecosystems across the dimensions of the Earth system.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.