exoCean Laboratory

Inauguration du laboratoire BISSAP à l’UCAD : un nouveau centre de référence pour la surveillance des écosystèmes aquatiques en Afrique de l’Ouest | Site Web IRD Le 21 juillet 2025, l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD) a inauguré le laboratoire BISSAP (Bioindicateurs, Imagerie et Surveillance des Systèmes Aquatiques et Pélagiques), en présence de Mous...

✨ Honored to witness the inauguration of the BISSAP lab at UCAD — a new lab for ecosystem monitoring in Senegal! 🌍🔬
Huge congratulations to everyone involved!
@climatecerege.bsky.social @ird-fr.bsky.social
#ScienceForAll #UCAD #IRD #Biodiversity #Africa #BISSAP
www.ird.fr/inauguration...

Have you heard of our @exoceanlab.bsky.social lab? It's a new facility for experimental oceanography -- We culture, measure, and dissolve carbonates there. Register to the account to get fresh updates from what we are doing there!

🌍 Tenure Track Junior Professorship at CEREGE
Focus: Critical zone evolution & global change in Mediterranean & intertropical Africa

CEREGE is hiring a Junior Professor (tenure track) with a pathway to IRD Research Director.

More information here : en.ird.fr/tenure-track...

Better together!

«You can’t have it all» they said. After weeks of field work in Bermuda, partly with my little one and significant other, thanks to the support of the amazing @chalkyoceans.bsky.social… I feel very optimistic that it is possible. Keep going! There’s room for science and tiny humans in our lives 💪🏼

Bermuda cave sampling today with @blancobercial.bsky.social for these little monsters (lovely forams)! Thank you Leo, @chalkyoceans.bsky.social, @biosstation.bsky.social !
@exoceanlab.bsky.social

Dozens of small plastic flasks, each containing an individual foram sit in a temperature controlled water bath, under lights.

We're away from our lovely light and temperature controlled incubators @exoceanlab.bsky.social, but that doesn't mean we can't keep our plankton happy. @biosstation.bsky.social water baths to the rescue. If you've ever wondered what culturing for trace isotope systems looks like, it's this! #d11B

With the « Life of Retaria » we do podcasts! Listen to the first one during which we interviewed @fabnot.bsky.social #protistsonsky

🔬We’d love to connect with others working on pteropods, marine plankton, or delicate pelagic organisms. Any advice on identification of early life stages, or tips for cultivation protocols, would be incredibly welcome.

📩 Let’s talk pteropods! Email us at: exocean@cerege.fr

🧫 Raising pteropods in vitro is still a big challenge, and very few labs around the world work on it. We’re thrilled by this success, but we also know it’s just the beginning.

(Inspired by the recent video from @antarctic.bsky.social — incredible work!)

It’s a rare and delicate glimpse into the life cycle of these fascinating planktonic snails — often called “sea butterflies.”

Led by Laura Khim, MSc student @univparissaclay.bsky.social currently working @cerege.bsky.social

About 12 juvenile pteropods as seen through a microscope.

Back in France, exoCean is still working hard...
🐚✨ A tiny miracle in the lab!
For the first time in our team’s history, we’ve successfully harvested pteropod egg sacs and captured the moment of their eclosion on film.

Tom with a fresh plankton sample about to be poured into the collection bucket. It's white so they stay cool on the way back to the lab.

We then collect the live plankton and try to keep them alive long enough to get to the lab. There we can look at how they respond to different conditions in a controlled setting. (And if you know @chalkyoceans.bsky.social, you know there will be boron involved).

A plankton net coming out of the deep water off the eastern side of Bermuda.

First things first, collecting forams (tiny single cellular protists who live as plankton) using a net. Like fishing but with a really small mesh size.

The boat Henry Stommel getting ready for a plankton tow at the BIOS dock.

ExoCean is in #Bermuda! Or at least most of it is (sorry @sulpis.bsky.social). We're here looking for foraminifera to grow in the lab, and sediments to observe how they will react to ocean change.

Stay tuned for lots of updates from us, and thanks to @climatecerege.bsky.social, @cerege.bsky.social, @cnrs.fr and @erc.europa.eu for the support.

Tom is packing a large metal container ready for fieldwork in Bermuda, watch this space!

Tom Chalk, an isotope geochemist (interested in the tiny variations in mass of chemical elements), specialising in boron, the 5th element. I am the Principal Investigator of the ERC project ForCry and CNRS researcher, interested in the natural history and unnatural future of Earth’s climate.

Olivier sits in front of his computer doing some lab admin, sometimes a full time job!

Olivier Sulpis, marine biogeochemist at CNRS. In the ERC Deep-C project, I combine experiments under crushing pressure with mechanistic models to investigate the fate of calcium carbonate in the ocean, from the dissolution of shells in the deep to the role of sediments as long-term carbon sinks.

Julie checks on her living cultures in a temperature and light controlled incubator.

Julie Meilland, marine biologist at the CNRS, studies planktonic foraminifera — focusing on their population dynamics, life cycle, reproduction, and ecological role in the carbon cycle. Her research explores their adaptive potential as model species in the modern and future oceans.

Three scientists standing in front of their new lab. From left to right: Tom Chalk, Olivier Sulpis and Julie Meilland.

🚨Hello world!🚨We'd like to introduce you to our new laboratory for "experimental ocean science", ExoCean (C is for carbon). We are three researchers teaming up to work on culturing, dissolving, & measuring marine samples. @juliemeilland.bsky.social, @sulpis.bsky.social & @chalkyoceans.bsky.social.