PERLE2 : back to the campaign
The PERLE-2 campaign (PI: P. Conan), aboard the NO/ Pourquoi Pas?, has just ended (21 February - 22 March 2019). On board, an international team of 40 researchers (25 French researchers from LOMIC, MIO, LOV and CEFREM) and 15 foreigners (Greeks, Italians, Israelis and Americans) shared the water from more than 120 CTD profiles. Indeed, a dense network of 97 stations crossing the Crete Sea (in the Aegean Sea) and criss-crossing the Libyan Sea (in the Levantine basin) was prospected during the campaign (see map). The MIO was particularly involved in the study of the carbonates cycle (with Thierry moutin and Cathy Wimar-Rousseau, doctoral student of Thibaut Wagener on board), phosphate (nanomolar measurements and labile fraction of DOP), ectoenzymatic activities and heterotrophic bacterial production (with Florian Voron, M2 student, Elvira Pulido, France Van Wambeke and Sophie Guasco), zooplankton (Francois Carlotti) and physics (Nagib Bhairy)
This campaign is part of a project (PERLE for Pelagic Ecosystem response in the Levant Experiment) of the MISTRALS-MERMEX programme which aims to describe the formation and dispersion of intermediate Levantine water (LIW), and determine its role in structuring planktonic ecosystems in the eastern Mediterranean. Four offshore campaigns aim to study the key periods of the annual cycle from both a physical and biogeochemical point of view. These periods are pre-conditioning (PERLE 0 and 1 campaigns which took place in summer and October 2018), the formation of dense water by mixing (this PERLE 2 campaign) and the dispersion of LIW (PERLE 3 campaign planned for 2019). These complete but discrete observations are supplemented by a set of physical and biogeochemical parameters collected by autonomous platforms (mooring lines; profiling floats; gliders; drifting buoys), satellite imagery, as well as other oceanographic campaigns conducted by Greek, Turkish and Israeli partners. This set will make it possible to test and improve modelling at regional level (Levantine basin), but also at large scale (Mediterranean). See and interact also on the twitter account of PERLE created by Laurent Coppola https://twitter.com/PERLE_cruises