International co-operations

  Foreign scientists of eight different countries have expressed their interest in the project KEOPS. They are summarised in the table below. They propose innovative work that fits well with the objectives of KEOPS. The proposed studies complete also nicely the expertise of the French participants. Most of the foreign contributors have already collaborated with other participants of KEOPS, especially in the Southern Ocean.

The Australian community brings an important contribution to KEOPS. In addition to the expertise of the different collaborators mentioned in the table above, we will deploy an Australian  mooring instrumented with sediment traps (Cooperation Franco Australienne).

A collaboration is also established with Japan. Three different Japanese projects will take place in the Southern part of the Kerguelen plateau (2003-2006). Although these projects are not fully dedicated to biogeochemistry, they will provide useful information on the spatial variability of environmental conditions and biogeochemical processes in this area. In the case of iron, which is a critical parameter, but difficult to acquire, an intercomparison will be made with the Japanese team of S. Takeda. Samples from the Japanese cruise (2003) will be analysed in Brest and we will send samples collected during KEOPS to Japan. (Dr S. Takeda was the PI of the SEED project. A successful iron fertilisation experiment in the subarctic Pacific in 2001).

We have also proposed to organise a common synthesis phase of the different projects (France, Australia, Japan) in 2006. This will facilitate the exchange of data and the organisation of special sessions at international meetings. This will ensure a large dissemination and impact of our findings.

KEOPS and the international research programs.

SOLAS : The general and specific objectives of KEOPS complement well the scientific plan of the international program SOLAS. The specific questions that will be addressed in KEOPS are particularly relevant for focus 1, with special relevance for 1.3) Dimethylsulphide and Climate and 1.4) Iron and marine productivity and also for focus 3) Air-sea flux of CO₂ and other long lived radiatively gases. One of the promising approaches mentioned in the SOLAS document is to use the plume of iron-rich waters “down stream” of islands located in the deep ocean as natural laboratories. An effort has been made in KEOPS to include collaborators that are experts in atmospheric chemistry (aerosol, DMS, gases with oxidising capacity).

OCEANS : there is a recent initiative from IGBP and SCOR to create a new ten-year international research program called: Ocean biogeoChemistry and Ecosystems AnalySis, ‘OCEANS’. The background material presented to stimulate discussion at the Open Science Conference (http://www.igbp.kva.se/obe/background.html) indicates that KEOPS can easily be placed under the umbrella of this program. A poster summarising the objectives and the strategies of KEOPS will be presented at the conference.

FP6 : The sixth program  for research of the European Community: It will be launched in November. Considering KEOPS, two different initiatives are important.

The network of excellence “ECCO” Ecosystems, biogeochemical cycles, and global change in the anthropocene ocean: (PIs P. Tréguer IUEM and L. Legendre LOV). KEOPS is relevant to the proposed “jointly executed research” :  Testing the biogeochemical iron fertilisation approach to carbon sequestration in the ocean.

The Integrated Project: “ACCESS” Antarctic Circumpolar Climate and Ecosystem Study. (PI V. Strass AWI, GE). The project aims to address the following questions:

-Which physical, biological and chemical processes in the Southern Ocean control the global and hence also european climate development.

-How sensitive are Southern Ocean processes and systems to climate change.

-Can large scale iron-fertlisation of the Southern Ocean provide a solution to the green house problem?

Two meetings are planned to refine both projects before the first call for proposal of the FP6. The KEOPS community will be present at the ECCO meeting (P.Treguer and B. quéguiner),  and at the ACCESS meeting (Bremerhaven, 21-23 Nov. ) S. Blain.

However, at the present day, it is not possible to say if both or one of the proposals will be relevant to the first call.

Hydrodynamics and optics

• -salinity, temperature, turbidity : sensors
• -currents: ADCP and currentmeter, turbidity : sensors
• -photosynthetic active radiations (in air and water).

Chemistry and geochemistry

• -Dissolved oxygen:  Oxygen sensor and Winkler method.
• -Nutrients : Nitrate, silicic acid, phosphate and ammonia : segmented flow analysis
• -Iron : on board analysis by Flow injection analysis with on line preconcentration and chemiluminescence detection. In situ analyser organic iron by competitive exchange CSV.
• -Other trace metal (Al, Mn): preconcentration and ICPMS.
• -DOC: high temperature catalytic oxidation method.
• -pCO₂, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity:  (in the framework of OISO)
• -DMS, DMSP, NMHC, NO₂, CH₄, CH₃X, CH₃NO₃ : Gas chromatograhy
• -DMSe : atomic fluorescence for Se and Hg)
• -Trace element concentrations in particles : ICP/ MS
• -Major elements in particles : ICP/AES 
• -Ra isotopes g : Low level counting underground laboratory
• -Pb, Pa, Th isotopes: MC/ICPMS, Nd isotopes : TIMS
• ²³⁴Th : b counting on board.
• -Ba : SEM/MEB and ICPMS.
• -⁹Be and ¹⁰Be :

Phytoplankton :

• -in situ fluorence, pigments: HPLC, chlorophyll (incubation): flurometry
• -biomass: Particulate Organic carbon, Particulate Organic nitrogen, Biogenic silica
• -Phytoplankton : microscopial identification and partition biomass within the different microphytoplankton species, abundance of pico and nano plankton by flow cytometry.
• -³²Si uptake and kinetics, ³³P uptake,¹³C and ¹⁵N uptake and regeneration. ⁵⁵Fe regeneration experiments, ¹⁴C P-I curve, b counting on board.
• - ³⁰Si uptake and dissolution: mass spectromery
• - ³⁰dSi, ¹⁵dN, ¹³dC, : mass spectrometry
• F_V/F_M individual cell measurement, F_V/F_M bulk population measurements, Fast Repetition Rate Fluorometry, Phyto-PAM fluorometry and cell manipulation techniques

  Zooplankton

• -microzooplankton abundances, biomass, microscopy.
• -Size spectra, abundances, biomasses of mesozooplankton from net tows over the water upper column (0-200 m). Classical net tow samples with a Bongo Net 200 µm at the stations.  Sample preservations processed later with a Lab-OPC to obtain zooplankton size spectra and with binocular for faunistic distributions (species, genus). Sample fraction for further CHN analysis on large size fractions (200-300 µm; 300-500 µm; 500-1000µm; >1000 µm).
• -Video profiler.

• Bacterial abundance and viability. Epifluorescence microscopy and FCM technique. Viability will be studied through observation of integrity of membrane (Gregori et al.(2001)
• Bacterial production : leucine technique (Smith & Azam 1992), size class bacterial production with on some selected profiles. Bacterial reassimilation of phytoplankton extracellular release. The method is based by size fractionation technique coupled to primary production measurements  (Fernandez et al., 1994)
• Bacterial diversity. Prokaryotic diversity (Bacteria and Archaea) will be determined by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Furthermore cloning and sequencing of selected bands obtained by DGGE will be performed. To obtain information on the fluctuation in abundance of the major bacterial groups (alpha-, beta-, gamma-Proteobacteria, Cytophaga-Bacteriodes-Flavobacter [CBF]) during the course of the iron enrichment, fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) will be combined with microautoradiography (MICRO-FISH).
• Viral production, the effect of viruses on bacterial mortality and the frequency of bacteria with a dormant viral genome (lysogeny) will be assessed using a viral reduction approach (Weinbauer et al. 2002). Moreover, a subsample of the virus concentrate will be used to assess the diversity of the viral community as differences in genome size distribution as assessed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (Steward 2001).

Other countries involved in KEOPS operation