
From the 4th to the 12th of May 2024, the research schooner Tara docked in Naples, Italy, for an important port call as part of the TREC expedition (Traversing European Coastlines), which involved a series of activities at the Porte and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (SZN). For this TREC expedition stopover in the historical Italian city, many activities were proposed in a coordinated action between BlueRemediomics project partners FTO, EMBL and SZN and the EU-funded projects AtlantECO and Biocean5D, including public outreach events, a political event and press conference, as well as a public scientific conference.
About the TREC Expedition
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) spearheads the TREC expedition, focused on studying the interface between land and sea in their natural context with an expedition across the entire European Coastline. The scientists on board of the Tara research vessel, a key component of TREC, collect water samples while scientists from EMBL conduct soil analyses on land. This comparative approach sheds light on the interconnections between these samples with the aim of understanding how human-induced challenges such as climate change and pollution impact these ecosystems.
Political event – 5th of May
The stopover was launched on Sunday, 5th of May, with a warm welcome of the Minister of Higher Education and Research of Italy, Ana Maria Bernini, and the Head of Unit Ocean, Seas and Waters at the European Commission, Elisabetta Balzi, highlighting the importance of the EU Mission Ocean and European scientific cooperation for the study and preservation of the Ocean. As part of this political event, visits of the Tara schooner and the EMBL’s advanced mobile labs were facilitated, introducing the audience to this extraordinary expedition at the land-sea interface.
Scientific Conference – 6th of May
A public scientific conference was held on the 6th of May at the beautiful Museum Darwin Dohrn in the centre of Naples facilitating an interesting discussion on data sharing and synergies between the EU-funded projects BlueRemediomics, BIOcean5D and AtlantECO. The morning session was dedicated to a presentation of the TREC (TRaversing European Coastlines) expedition, highlighting its efforts of analysing land-sea interactions on a European scale to enable a comparison across the entire European coastline, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the impact of both natural environmental variations and anthropogenic impacts. This was followed by an important presentation from Elisabetta Balzi, introducing the latest EU Mission Ocean updates and opportunities.
BlueRemediomics Co-Coordinator Rob Finn presented the project’s objectives and main actions, highlighting the potential of the marine microbiome and its impact on ocean health. This was followed by a discussion on potential synergies with other EU-funded projects on data collection and analysis. The event concluded with a rich session in the afternoon, including talks by BlueRemedimics Co-Coordinator Chris Bowler (CNRS) and Donatella De Pascale (SZN), describing specific actions from BlueRemediomics scientific tasks, such as bioremediation and bioprospecting.
The stopover provided an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among the Italian public of the challenges of the Ocean and introduced a large audience to this extraordinary expedition at the land-sea interface.