SARGASSUM - Joint call, « Research, development and innovation », SARGASSUM

Identity and origins of pelagic Sargassum – SARGASSUM ORIGINS

Submission summary

Sargassum inundation has caused major ecological, economical and societal damage in the Caribbean since 2011. The massive strandings are associated with the extensive occurrence of Sargassum aggregations in the Tropical North Atlantic. The Sargassum Origins project is an integrative framework designed to understand processes behind the expansion of holopelagic Sargassum populations in the Caribbean region. The first objective of this project is thus to clearly identify the Sargassum species growing in the North Atlantic and determine to what extent the species co-occur, with a particular focus on the species involved in inundations. The second objective is to study the connectivity of Sargassum at the Atlantic-scale, with a focus on the fluxes and exchanges that are occurring between the historical Sargasso Sea and the new area of proliferation. The hypothesis of a clonality of the pelagic species will be particularly studied. The role of the rivers (Amazonian rivers, African rivers) in the proliferation of the Sargassum is regularly argued, thus a third objective is to elucidate the origin of the nutrient inputs in the carbon and nitrogen Sargassum pathways.

Thierry Thibaut (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Institut Méditerranéen d'océanologie)

The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.

ECKERD Eckerd College
ISYEB Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité
SEA SEA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
TAMUG Texas A &M University
UA-BOREA Université des Antilles, pôle Guadeloupe (UA), Laboratoire Biologie des Organismes et Ecosystèmes Aquatiques (BOREA)
ISEM Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
IRD-MIO Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Institut Méditerranéen d'océanologie
UBO-LEMAR Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO), Laboratoire des sciences de l'Environnement MARin (LEMAR)
AD2M Adaptation et diversité en milieu marin
IRD-LEGOS Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) / Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS)
SAFEGE

Help of the ANR 269,077 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project: December 2019 - 36 Months

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