The WARMALIS 2 oceanographic campaign is underway

 For this second campaign, Warmalis 2, the scientific team including Martine Rodier (MIO-EMBIO) crosses, on board the Alis, the central Pacific Ocean from south to north, starting from Papeete in French Polynesia to go back north and cross the Kiribati Line Islands to finish its work in international waters. Having started on September 14, the campaign will last 21 days during which 15 sampling stations will be carried out if the weather conditions allow it. This campaign has the particularity of being the very last campaign of the Alis, a ship of the French oceanographic fleet. After more than 30 years of loyal service, the Alis will retire at the end of this mission.

Warmalis aims to understand the functioning of the pelagic oceanic ecosystem and determine its influence on tuna resources in the western and central Pacific region.

Scientists will study the intermediate trophic levels (zooplankton and micronekton) of the large pelagic ecosystems of the Pacific, where more than 50% of the world's tuna catches come from. Zooplankton and micronekton are elements that link the physical/chemical factors of the ocean, which influence their distribution and abundance, to the megafauna (e.g. tuna, marine mammals, seabirds) that are their predators.

The goal of the Warmalis project is to fill the important gap in knowledge about the large pelagic ecosystems of the Pacific. The objective is to provide scientific knowledge for sustainable management of pelagic resources by understanding the functioning of pelagic ecosystems (from the physical to the intermediate biological levels) and by collecting observations to validate and improve the ecosystem models used to analyze tuna resources (SEAPODYM).

The Warmalis campaigns are multidisciplinary, physico-chemical data of the sea water will be collected as well as data on zooplankton and micronekton. To characterize the physico-chemical conditions and primary production, scientists will measure temperature, salinity, oxygen, fluorescence, light, currents, nutrients, photosynthetic pigments, phytoplankton abundance, primary production, phytoplankton communities. Secondary production (zooplankton, micronekton) will be measured by acoustic sampling (TAPS, WBAT, S-ADCP, EK60) and by net for zooplankton and micronekton.