ATLASea: progress on sequencing marine biodiversity

Join us for the first ERGA Plenary meeting of 2026! On Monday, January 19, at 15:00 CET, Hugues Roest Crollius will present an update on the progress of the ATLASea program, which aims to unlock the potential of marine biodiversity genomes for fundamental research and applications.

Abstract

The ATLASea program (https://www.atlasea.fr) aims to unlock the potential of marine biodiversity genomes for fundamental research and applications. Funded by the French government for eight years, ATLASea conducts large-scale sampling across the French Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to collect eukaryotic marine specimens and produce 4,500 high-quality reference genomes. All data and resources are made publicly available to the scientific community. In its first two years, ATLASea has established standardized sampling and sequencing protocols, developed a dedicated informatics infrastructure, and built international partnerships within the Ocean Decade, the Earth BioGenome Project, and the European Reference Genome Atlas. Sampling campaigns along the French metropolitan coasts and in overseas territories (Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea) have yielded over 2,300 species, with more than 200 genomes already sequenced from diverse marine taxa. Preliminary results will be presented, revealing remarkable variations of genome properties and highlighting novel co-biontic associations when multiple organismal genomes are recovered from shared DNA extracts.

Speaker

Hugues Roest Crollius is a CNRS researcher leading a group at the IBENS in Paris on comparative genomics, particularly in vertebrates. He also co-leads the ATLASea programme, to sequence the genomes of several thousands marine species in the French EEZ.

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