A unique exhibition combining science, art and environmental awareness, TERRA MAR is on show at the Planet Ocean Montpellier Aquarium from 17 June to 30 September. Designed for all ages, it was created by the TAPIOCA International Joint Laboratory as part of the Year of the Sea in France and the France-Brazil 2025 season.
Coordinated by the IRD, a French research institute, and the Federal and Federal Rural Universities of Pernambuco (UFPE and UFRPE) in Brazil, Terra Mar brings together more than 150 French and Brazilian researchers and students. The exhibition will also be presented in October 2025 in Recife, Brazil.
Since 2018, the LMI TAPIOCA has produced over 100 scientific publications thanks to ambitious projects and enhanced cooperation between French and Brazilian laboratories. The exhibition showcases this work, the fruit of fruitful collaboration between the countries and an integrated approach to marine science.
To know more
https://tapioca.ird.fr/terra-mar/
https://terramar.online/
Contact
Arnaud BERTRAND, IRD Research Director, co-coordinator of LMI TAPIOCA
At the close of the "Assises Nationales des Données de la Recherche 2024", which took place on November 26 and 27 at the Mucem in Marseille, the Ichthyop software (https://ichthyop.org), represented by Nicolas Barrier (IRD, MARBEC) and Philippe Verley (IRD, AMAP) for the developers and Céline Barrier (University of Corse) for the users, received the “Prix science ouverte du logiciel libre de la recherche 2024” in the ‘Scientific and Technical’ category. The jury, chaired by Pierre Boulet (University of Lille), was particularly impressed by Ichthyop's use outside its original community.
Initially developed to study the dynamics of fish eggs and larvae for applications in the South, and in South Africa in particular, Ichthyop is now widely used for more directly applied problems, such as the study of virus dissemination from aquaculture farms, the tracking and collection of marine debris and pollutants, and even the reconstruction of the drift of the remains of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane.
This award, which recognizes projects and research teams working to develop and disseminate open source software, rewards the efforts of the scientific and technical contributors to the Ichthyop software, whether students, PhDs, post-docs, researchers or engineers. Many thanks to Christian Mullon, Christophe Lett (IRD, MARBEC), Philippe Verley and
Nicolas Barrier, who have been the main contributors so far, as well as to the many Ichthyop users around the world who enrich scientific knowledge through their work. A number of doctoral students from the South, trained in Ichthyop, continue to use the software for their research in their respective countries, in South Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Chile and Brazil.
Ichthyop is a software program for simulating the dispersion of organisms by ocean currents, which can also be applied to other environmental issues such as the study of plastic drift in the ocean.
Launched in 2007, Ichthyop helps to better understand the ecology of commercial species with high economic stakes, and to implement marine conservation policies by studying the connectivity between marine protected areas, as well as to study the drift of non-living entities such as pollutants
and marine debris.
To know more
Prix science ouverte du logiciel libre de la recherche 2024
As part of its scientific outreach activities aimed at Cycle 3 schoolchildren (CM1, CM2, 6ième), UMR MARBEC commissioned Sophie BLAISE, an illustrator trained at the Émile Cohl school, to produce a comic strip presenting its research activities. Financed by MARBEC and the Labex CEMEB in Montpellier, LA BD MARBEC is available: https://umr-marbec.fr/la-bd-marbec/
