Services

The Oceanographic Observatory of Banyuls-sur-mer (OOB), also called Laboratoire ARAGO, was founded in 1882 by the Sorbonne zoologist Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers in a location with exceptional marine biodiversity and well situated for oceanographic studies. As recognition of this hot spot for marine biodiversity, the first Marine Reserve in France was established in Banyuls in 1974. The second National Marine Park in France and the first marine protected area on the French Mediterranean coast was created in 2012, with a large perimeter including the deep Lacaze–Duthiers canyon of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

OOB provides TA services for ASSEMBLE Plus, for which Sorbonne Université (SU) is the French partner. Since its inception, the main tasks of the Observatory have been to train future generations of scientists, to conduct research, to ensure the monitoring of the coastal environment and to allow the public to discover the marine and terrestrial biodiversity of the area. Research is conducted in several marine research areas such as marine biology, microbiology, biogeochemistry, marine ecology, integrative and evolutionary biology and biotechnology.

There is a focus on the study of biodiversity and the effects of environmental disturbance on organisms and ecosystems. OOB has research links with the pharmaceutical and cosmetics company, Pierre Fabre Laboratories. Other companies at the interface of public health and the environment collaborate with the Observatory. Principal partners are EDF, Veolia Environnement, Microphyt and Microbia Environnement. Microbia Environnement is a start-up company which emerged at and is hosted by the OOB.

Bioresources available

• Culture collections (On-site and remote service)

  • The Banyuls Bacterial Culture Collection (BBCC)

    • Contains more than 2500 heterotrophic bacterial strains. Microorganisms were isolated from oceanographic cruise samples: from oligotrophic waters to the most eutrophic, at the water interface with air or sediments, or from the water column.

    • It also contains symbiotic bacteria associated with plants (macrophytes, seaweeds) and animals (sea urchin, jellyfish). Each strain is identified with a unique BBCC code and genetically characterized (16S rRNA). All the strains are available under a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA).

• Marine model organisms (On-site and remote service)

  • Paracentrotus lividus (eggs)

  • Aurelia aurita (polyps and ephyrules)

  • Zebrafish (eggs and larvae)

  • Amphiprion ocellaris (eggs and larvae)

  • Pocillopora damicornis (frags and eggs)

  • Dogfish (eggs)

• Species collected upon request (On-site and remote service)

  • Collection and supply of local marine flora and fauna specimens by diving and at sea

Support offered

Scientific and technical support will be provided already at the preparation of the proposal to be presented in each TA call, in order to suit the user’s needs.

The potential users will be supported from the beginning by the Access Managers to:

• 1) identify the services more suitable to their needs,

• 2) identify the scientific-technical contact that would contribute in the preparation of the proposal, and

• 3) support the user in the presentation of the request.

Once the access request is accepted, the Local Access Officer will support the user from the logistic and administrative point of view, providing the information for reaching the station and tracking the documents that will allow the presence of an external user in the station (host agreement, badges, etc.).

During the project execution, the user will have continuous technical and scientific support. The possibility of being hosted in the station, supported by the Hosting services, boosts the interaction with the larger scientific and technical community of researchers at the station.

Modality of acess

The user would have access to:

• 1) a wide range of microorganisms of aquaculture interest, both as feed for larval stages or filter feeding aquaculture organisms, and as a source of compounds of interest (such as omega-3, vitamins, pigments, etc.);

• 2) organisms of interest for aquaculture production, such as macroalgae;

• 3) aquaculture facilities of different scales (from aquaria to mesocosms) and circulation systems;

• 4) and analytical platforms on-site that allow an immediate, almost real-time analysis of the experimental set-up.