In Roscoff, 150 years of monitoring the marine environment

From our special correspondent in Roscoff

On the back deck of the small blue trawler, two sailors are preparing a long, very fine-mesh white net and launching it, then leaving it to trail close to the surface, in the wake of the ship.

With an opening of only 30 cm and meshes of 20 micrometers, it is not very common fishing that is taking place in the bay of Morlaix, off Roscoff (Finistère).

Moreover, the scientists who accompany the sailors on the

a coastal vessel from the Roscoff biological station (CNRS/Sorbonne University), do not talk about fishing, but about taking samples.

And what they are looking to study is hardly spectacular to the naked eye: it is plankton.

Since 2000, the station's scientists have been carrying out this type of sampling every fortnight during neap tides (the minimum amplitude of the cycle) as part of the national Phytobs program, carried out in around fifteen laboratories on the coast. .

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