Tara Oceans data
Tara Expeditions are global scientific voyages that probe morphological and molecular diversity, evolution and ecology of marine plankton to explore how they are impacted by changes in the Earth's climate. The first expeditions collected samples of marine plankton containing viruses, bacteria, archaea, protists and planktonic metazoans living in the photic layer of the world's oceans. These expeditions, which took place between 2009 and 2013, include Tara Oceans: a global view, and Tara Oceans Polar Circle, both of which followed the same sampling protocol.
The datasets here represent the fruits of an extensive sampling programme accompanied by rich, physico-chemical, contextual information. This enables holistic investigations of marine ecosystems, their potential applications and their fragility.
We offer these data through several resources in order to maximise their discoverability and help users apply the most appropriate tools for their analyses. We hope researchers from many disciplines will continue to explore these and other marine datasets in new ways well into the future.
Where to find Tara Oceans data
European Nucleotide Archive: Primary and consortium analysis data
The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) hosts and presents Tara primary sequence data, including a representation of each Tara Oceans sample that is associated with molecular data.
The Tara Oceans sample descriptions comprise a core set of sample attributes that characterise each sample uniquelyand map to the external Tara Oceans Sample Registry at PANGAEA. This collection of sample contextual data is described in the Tara Oceans checklist.
The ENA also hosts data derived during analysis within the Tara Oceans Consortium, which includes taxonomic and gene calls.
Analysed data: MGnify
EMBL-EBI's MGnify resource operates a standard, systematic analysis of shotgun sequence data from any metagenomics or metatranscriptomics project, including the Tara samples. The resource presents the results of these functional and taxonomic analyses and makes them available for download, as both summaries and sequences.
The MGnify web interface provides a basic comparison tool that allows samples to be compared, thereby allowing differences between Tara sampling sites to be revealed.
Find out more
Tara primary sequence data
Tara sample data analysis
Tara Oceans sample registry
