Leading marine survey finds home at enlarged Plankton Lab
6 Oct 2024
Charities supporter the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Marine Biological Association (MBA) have joined forces to enable the new Plankton Taxonomy Laboratory in Plymouth to host one of the world’s most substantial marine ecological surveys.
Based at Plymouth’s Citadel Hill, the lab will house the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, billed as one of the longest-running and geographically extensive projects of its kind. In 2020 the CPR was awarded the Guinness World Records title for the greatest distance sampled by a marine survey, surpassing 7 million nautical miles.
Containing double its adjacent previous site’s capacity, the lab completed by Nevada Construction features 16 CPR workstations with seven plankton taxonomy workstations for non-CPR samples, plus sample processing, silk preparation and taxonomy training rooms.
Director of Research Facilities and head of the CPR Survey David Johns said: “The new Plankton Taxonomy Laboratory has enabled us to build on our existing record-breaking, policy-relevant and strategic plankton work.
“The improved facilities, collaborative spaces, and dedicated taxonomy workspace, combined with recent advances in augmented sampling is creating an exciting future of research possibilities.”
Key to the lab completion was the support of the Garfield Weston Foundation which agreed to provide £0.4 million with matching funding from the MBA. The foundation provides an estimated £100 million to charitable organisations across the UK, covering a wide variety of sectors.
