UA News

UA biologist Matthew Sullivan coordinates science that will sample Earth's oceans for viruses.

The University of Arizona Biosphere 2 and a UA scientist involved in a new international ocean expedition will present a special public event, “Tara Oceans: Voyage to the Bottom of the Food Chain,” at Biosphere 2 on Saturday, Sept. 5.

During this special Saturday, Biosphere 2 visitors can:

• Tour near the 25-foot deep, million-gallon salt water ocean inside the 3.14-acre Biosphere 2 glass dome.

• Talk with scientists who are conducting research on ocean research vessels around the world.

• See two films, “Tara Arctic,” which will be shown throughout the day in the Ocean Viewing Gallery underwater classroom, and “Journey to Planet Earth: State of the Planet’s Oceans,” which will be shown throughout the day in the human habitat.

• Hear presentations and take part in activities scheduled from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at sites around the Biosphere 2 campus. There will be hands-on activities for people of all ages, said Matt Adamson, Biosphere 2 education and outreach coordinator. Activities include building your own plankton, viewing marine samples under microscopes, and activities related specifically to the Sea of Cortez.

• Hear half-hour talks titled “Introduction to Tara Oceans,” at 11 a.m. and at 1 p.m. by Matthew B. Sullivan, UA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a Tara Oceans science coordinator.

On Sept. 4, the two-masted ocean-going yacht Tara will sail from Lorient, a harbor on the south coast of Brittany, France, beginning a 3-year round-the-world oceanographic expedition of unprecedented scale. Sailing under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program, the “Tara Oceans” project will map the planet’s ocean plankton communities, measuring largely unknown physical and chemical environments of organisms that are critical to life on Earth.

Scientists are concerned that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are changing acidity levels in world oceans and will affect ocean plankton.

Through photosynthesis, these microscopic organisms absorb half of the carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere and produce as much oxygen as Earth’s forests. Without oxygen-producing plankton, humans would not have evolved, and without plankton, humans will not exist, they add.

Biosphere 2’s ocean has been a major asset for Sullivan, who is one of only three Americans among 20 Tara Oceans science coordinators. Sullivan, who heads the Tucson Marine Phage Lab at the UA, is in charge of sampling ocean viruses for the Tara Oceans expedition.

“Although the Biosphere 2 ocean is not yet representative of any real-world system, it does represent a complex system and has been critical in our development of the novel sampling techniques needed for oceanographic research on this global scale and on a vessel of this size,” Sullivan said.

"Specifically, over the past year we have developed a new chemistry-based method to concentrate viruses. It is cheaper, better and faster than standard methods, a new method that makes it possible to sample for viruses at all on a ship like this. It will allow us to capture nearly the whole viral community, instead of just the 10 percent most hardy viruses that we were capturing before."

The Tara, which is slightly larger than half the length of a small standard oceanographic research vessel, has targeted 375 sampling sites during its voyage of more than 93,000 miles, or almost half the distance between the Earth and the moon.

“The Tara Oceans project represents an historic visit to the past. In a way, we’re retracing the Challenger’s circum-global voyages through oceans in hopes of obtaining similarly powerful insights into the workings of Earth’s ocean ecosystems,” Sullivan said.

(The Challenger expedition of 1872-76, named after the mother vessel HMS Challenger, was a scientific expedition that made many discoveries leading to the foundation of oceanography.)

For the first time, Sullivan said, Tara Oceans scientists will systematically sample organisms of varying sizes from the same plankton communities. Organisms include viruses, microbes, larvae, protists and jellyfish. “Our sampling targets are viruses, while our colleagues are sampling other slices of life that will swim into our nets and imaging equipment,” he said.

Also, for the first time, Sullivan added, “Experts will be investigating these communities with everything in a biologist’s tool kit, not just an oceanographer’s tool kit.”

Scientists will make standard measurements of water chemistry and physics, but also take sophisticated assays that yield high-throughput particle counts, and perform large-scale genomic sequencing and cutting-edge imaging “that rival those found anywhere on land, let alone an oceanographic ‘mobile lab’ at sea,” he said.

Katrina Mangin, director of outreach for UA’s College of Science, said the goal of Biosphere 2’s “Tara Oceans” program is to share the excitement of marine research that UA scientists are doing with the public, and “to introduce people to the incredible diversity and beauty of the organisms that make up the plankton...a hidden world of life that is very important for the functioning of the whole ecosystem of the planet.”

“Because of Dr. Sullivan’s involvement with the Tara Oceans project, we really had an opportunity to spotlight the ocean biome, the kinds of research we’ll do in that system, and connections to the real oceans of the world,” Adamson said. “UA has a world-class reputation in the terrestrial sciences. This was a great opportunity to showcase the equally impressive marine research under way at UA as well.”

Biosphere 2 is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is an admission charge. For more information, call 520-838-6137 or visit Biosphere 2 Web site.

Biosphere 2
A world-renowned engineering marvel, the 7.2-million-cubic-foot Biosphere 2 glass-and-steel dome is famous as the artificial world where eight humans lived for two years, sealed off from Earth, in a privately funded self-sufficiency experiment in the early 1990s. The structure contains recreations of Earth's savanna, desert, ocean and tropical rainforest wilderness.

The UA, under the auspices of the College of Science, assumed management of Biosphere 2 in June 2007, when it was awarded a $30 million grant to lease the 34.5-acre Biosphere 2 campus. Educators have since focused on expanding public education programs and exhibits at the major regional attraction. Scientists have focused on using the vast glass-enclosed laboratory to more quickly answer critical, complex questions related to global climate change, water, energy and other environmental challenges.