Glider, ship and satellite measurements of marine bioluminescence in the Mediterranean Sea: the BIOLUMOPS project

In the ocean, bioluminescent organisms are ubiquitous (e.g. Martini and Haddock 2017) and
deeply related to the ocean dynamics at multiple-scale (e.g. Piontkovski et al 2023).
Bioluminescent organisms range from bacteria (bioluminescent bacteria have ecological
importance in the biological carbon pump, e.g. Tanet et al 2020) to fishes, not forgetting in
particular many zooplankton species and most dinoflagellates (these bioluminescent organisms
emit light through mechanical stimulation allowing in situ sensing of these biological tracers).
BIOLUMOPS (“BIOLUminescence Marine, Observations spatio-temporelles in situ par Planeur
Sous-marin”) is a project running for 3 years from January 2024 to December 2026. The study
focuses on the Gulf of Lion, in the Mediterranean Sea, which is known to be an area where winter
deep convection occurs recurrently, in correlation with bioluminescence signals (Martini et al 2014).
The project aims at observing the bioluminescence and their related physical and biogeochemical
variables at multiscale: from the fine scale vertical sawtooth paths sampling of an ocean glider to
the large scale surface ocean colour sampling of satellite remote sensors, not mentioning the
discreet sampling of the ship measurements. The four main tasks of this project are
multidisciplinary: 1. integrating two (reference and innovative) bioluminescence sensors on a same
glider; 2. deploying ship and glider in the Gulf of Lion over three surveys; 3. data processing using
classification of organisms, in relation with biochemical and hydrodynamic variables; 4. validating
ocean colour satellite image of dinoflagellates in the highly dynamic waters of the Gulf of Lion.
References
Martini, S., Nerini, D., Tamburini, C. (2014), Relation between deep bioluminescence and oceanographic
variables: A statistical analysis using time–frequency decompositions, Progress in Oceanography, 127, 117-
128, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2014.07.003
Martini, S., Haddock, S. (2017), Quantification of bioluminescence from the surface to the deep sea
demonstrates its predominance as an ecological trait, Sci Rep 7, 45750, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep45750
Piontkovski, S. A., Melnik, A. V., Serikova, I. M., Minsky, I. A., Zhuk, V. F. (2023), Bioluminescent eddies of
the World Ocean, Luminescence, 38(4), 505, https://doi.org/10.1002/bio.4475
Tanet, L., Martini, S., Casalot, L., and Tamburini, C. (2020), Reviews and syntheses: Bacterial
bioluminescence – ecology and impact in the biological carbon pump, Biogeosciences, 17, 3757–3778,
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3757-2020.