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PML-led Transatlantic Research Project Endorsed as an Ocean Decade Action
8 August 2024
The Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT), a flagship UK government National Capability programme led and coordinated by Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), has been officially endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (‘Ocean Decade’) as a Decade Action as part of the Biomolecular Ocean Observing Network (OBON).
The endorsement is a significant recognition of AMT’s vital role in advancing oceanographic science and supporting international marine and climate policy.
The AMT programme, established in 1995 and coordinated by PML, conducts an annual voyage from the UK to the South Atlantic. Covering a wide range of latitudes, including the rarely sampled North and South Atlantic gyres, AMT provides crucial in-situ measurements to validate satellite observations, with the high-quality data collected helping to inform policy decisions and national and international legislation. The programme's sampling approach includes open ocean, coastal waters, and a wide range of ocean conditions, capturing the Atlantic Ocean's diversity and complexity.
AMT is being endorsed by the Ocean Decade as part of OBON, which is designed to develop best practice for using eDNA and other biomolecular measurements for next-generation ocean observation. OBON is led by the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean - the global forum to promote and advance ocean observations (which has its secretariat based at PML) - with partners all working together to make molecular datasets more accessible.
Under OBON, a new project, called “AMT-omics”, is bringing together a variety of partners alongside PML, including the Marine Biological Association (MBA), the University of Southern California, St Francis Xavier University, The University of California (Irvine) and the University of Stellenbosch. This aims to:
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Collate all AMT molecular data to make it easy to find, access, use, and share
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Integrate molecular data from various methods to create valuable long-term data sets for the entire Atlantic Ocean.
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Compare traditional and molecular data to ensure consistent long-term data as part of the transition towards increased automated sampling (for which molecular data will become the main source)
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Support the training of Early Career Researchers (ERC) molecular and bioinformatics skills through a POGO-sponsored fellowship.
Julian Barbière, Global Coordinator of the Ocean Decade and Head of the Marine Policy and Regional Coordination Section of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC), said:
"We are proud to count the AMT program as part of the Ocean Decade. Ensuring accessible, timely, and actionable data and information to all ocean users is at the heart of our mission. It is the focus of the Decade Challenge 8, which aims to expand the global ocean observing system. But observations and data also underpin all other Decade Challenges. Programs such as AMT play an indispensable role in providing the data needed to support decision-making processes on complex ocean-related issues, and are essential to achieving the objectives of the Ocean Decade."
PML’s Professor Andy Rees, project lead for AMT, said:
“Long-term, sustained ocean observations are critical to our understanding of the ocean’s role in the global climate system and the changes taking place within it. We’re delighted that AMT has been endorsed as an Ocean Decade Action, which recognises the vital and unique role it plays in furthering biological, chemical, and physical oceanographic research while helping to develop the next generation of scientists and scientific methods.”
About AMT
Since its inception, AMT has facilitated groundbreaking research, hosting 310 scientists from more than 60 research institutes across 30 countries, resulting in over 400 scientific papers and contributing to more than 75 PhD studies. AMT continues to play a pivotal role in capacity building and capability development within the global oceanographic community.
www.pml.ac.uk/science/Projects/Atlantic-Meridional-Transect-(AMT)
ATLANTIC MERIDIONAL TRANSECT ‘OMICS NETWORK (AMT-OMICS)
About the Ocean Decade
Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2017, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) seeks to reverse the decline in ocean health and create new opportunities for sustainable ocean development. The Decade’s vision is ‘the science we need for the ocean we want’. Coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the Ocean Decade brings together scientists and stakeholders to generate the knowledge needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.