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Global Survey Routes

The NSF has provided critical funding for maintaining Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) routes which make up around 40% of the total North Atlantic coverage. This project maintains USA support for the North Atlantic CPR survey.

Key highlights:

  • The CPR survey is the world’s longest and most geographically expansive marine biological survey, routinely recording nearly 700 plankton taxa.
  • Monthly CPR tows, spanning 15,000 km each month, are essential for understanding changes in marine ecosystems.
  • NSF funding has enabled consistent sampling along transatlantic routes, with high-impact scientific publications resulting from this data.
  • This project will maintain the CPR’s extensive observation system, preserving the integrity of its long-term database and supporting the logistics of operations, plankton analysis, and archiving.

By ensuring continued funding, the USA can deepen its understanding of the rapidly changing marine environment while supporting international collaboration.

Distribution of historical CPR samples for the Northern Hemisphere. Funding from the NSF is contributing to the Western Atlantic CPR routes.
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