The replica Beagle is not intended to be a museum ship; she will be equipped with laboratories and equipment to allow contemporary, original research. This is not only in keeping with Charles Darwin’s legacy but also creates an opportunity to engage students and teachers in the excitement of real scientific discovery.
The Beagle will spend 2009 - 2011 circling the world in Darwin's wake, making similar landfalls and undertaking shore expeditions. She will host two perpetual DNA-based projects that together will explore both macroscopic and microscopic biodiversity and offer opportunities for sustained formal curriculum links during the voyage and beyond. The Beagle will also host shorter, one-off researcher-led projects targeting specific localities along the voyage.
Voyage-spanning research projects
Two projects will run throughout the voyage and offer opportunities for parallel studies in green spaces, freshwater and coastal environments close to schools. Based on scientific precedent, both projects will yield new and important discoveries about the diversity of life on earth:
I. Metagenomics
Metagenomics is the study of a mixture of genetic material from different organisms contained in an environmental sample. The Beagle will be equipped with equipment to capture ocean microbes onto filters for sequencing at partner genomics institutes (TBD). Data will be uploaded and analysed using Global Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Research and Analysis (CAMERA), a user-driven site dedicated to providing the scientific community with metagenomics data and analysis tools. Results will be made available to researchers, teachers and students alike to analyse using CAMERA cyberinfrastructure tools. We expect this project to deliver results similar to those recently published in PLoS Biology including dramatic new insights into the composition and structure of marine microbial communities and their genes. Beagle metagenomic samples will be time-stamped for correlation with images taken from space by NASA astronauts in the International Space Station. These images will enable the visible characteristics of plankton blooms and other biotic phenomena as seen from space to be ground-truthed by real measurements on the ship.
II. DNA barcoding
Aboard the Beagle and on inshore expeditions, scientists, students and teachers will collect traditional animal and plant specimens (or photographic vouchers where appropriate) relating both to specific research projects (below) and general Beagle-based surveys, and for each specimen collected or observed, researchers will be expected to collect tissue samples for DNA analysis. Just as the name suggests, DNA barcoding is proposed as a way of accessing information about an organism by “scanning”, or reading off, a short, informative length of its DNA. Reference databases must first be assembled, and the Beagle voyage will play a key role in populating international barcoding databases with specimen-linked DNA sequence data
Limited duration research projects
The Beagle will also host a portfolio of shorter, specific, one-off researcher-led projects, involving teachers and students aboard to make targeted collections of data and specimens during pre-defined stretches of the voyage ranging from 2-8 weeks in duration.
These projects will be aimed at specific localities, either marine or terrestrial (the latter taking place on parallel inland expeditions such as those carried out by Darwin in Argentina, Chile and the Galapagos). As on the 1831-6 circumnavigation, Beagle-based research will span a variety of disciplines including biology, oceanography and geophysical studies.
We expect that access to the Beagle for scientific research will be much sought-after, not simply because of the historical relevance of the voyage itself, but also because the Beagle will be offering support, in kind, for oceangoing research projects on a case-specific basis. If you are a researcher with a project idea for the Beagle voyage, please contact us as explained under "How to get involved" below.
Science queries should be directed Director of science
Patrons:
Lord Julian Hunt CB MA PhD FIMA FRS, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston CBE RD, Lord Richard Livsey CBE, DL
Banner: Beagle off the Galapagos by John Chancellor. © Dr Gordon Chancellor and reproduced with his kind permission.