The BIOSWOT-Med campaign contributes to the BIOSWOT-adAC international effort, focusing on the Western Mediterranean Sea. The latter is the ideal area to verify the hypothesis of fine-scale circulation as a driver of plankton biodiversity. Indeed, here high biodiversity is associated with conditions of oligotrophy and moderate energy, unlike oceanic zones such as the western edge currents or the eastern edge upwellings which are widely explored and where intense dynamics or the large nutrient supply can mask the fine-scale coupled dynamics. An adaptive and Lagrangian sampling strategy was applied, combined with innovative methodologies to obtain multidisciplinary measurements at high spatio-temporal resolution in the SWOT satellite swaths (see figure below).

The BIOSWOT-Med campaign aims to improve our understanding of the coupling between physical and biological processes, from viruses to zooplankton. As Mediterranean conditions are representative of a large majority of the global ocean, our research has a global scope. Additionally, our highly interdisciplinary research aims to highlight the importance of SWOT mission data for biogeochemical and ecological studies. Finally, our at-sea campaign provides new information to improve ocean modeling and assess the role of the ocean on a fine scale in the Earth system.

Samples were collected from various stations in a cyclonic, anticyclonic and frontal structure, using phytonets of 20 µm mesh size. Samples were filtered onto 0.2 µm filters on board, dried at 50°C for 2h, then gold-coatted and analyzed back at the laboratory on a Phenom ProX benchtop SEM.