Fig 1.
Map showing the route of the Tara Pacific expedition and the sampling sites (red spots) throughout the Pacific Ocean (July 2016 to October 2018) as well as the mean annual SST (top) and pH (bottom).
Global annual SSTs were extracted from the MODIS-Aqua satellite and correspond to global mapped climatologies of the period from 2002 to 2018 (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), whereas pH values originate from the GLODAPv2 database [59, 60], with mean data displayed corresponding to the 0–30 m depths between 2000 and 2013. GLODAP, Global Ocean Data Analysis Project; MODIS, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer; NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; PNG, Papua New Guinea; SST, sea surface temperature.
Fig 2.
Schematic representation of the frame and major goals of Tara Pacific, which is investigating jointly the coral, microbiome, and environment.
Fig 3.
Schematic representation of the sampling design allowing the comparison of various components of coral reef ecosystems.
Using the developed protocol, we collected 2,500 oceanic samples (32 islands × 3 oceanic sites × 5 size fractions × 2–5 protocols), 7,500 coral-surrounding and surface water samples (32 islands × 3 coral sites × 3 environments × 5 size fractions × 2–5 protocols), 40 coral core samples (32 islands × 1 Porites sp. and/or Diploastrea sp × 1–2 core samples), 20,160 coral fragments (32 islands × 3 coral sites × 3 species of corals × 10 colonies × 7 protocols), and 9,600 fish tissue samples (32 islands × 3 coral sites × 2 species of fish × 5–10 individuals × 5 protocols). Taken together, the dataset comprises a total of approximately 40,000 samples. Bottom figure copyright to Agence DATCHA/taraexpeditions.org.