| Summary: | The TANGO2 expedition ventured to accumulate new information and samples to delineate responses of marine ecosystems to shifts in ice regimes in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), taking full advantage of a nimble sampling platform, the R/V Australis, a steel hulled, fully rigged motor sailor. TANGO2 took place between February and March 2024, sampling three main locations at different spatial scales. Deploying 11 different types of gear (both traditional and modern), the TANGO2 Team gathered over 4000 physical samples that will be brought back to Belgium for further analysis. The Team focused on synchronized, transdisciplinary sampling to understand the linkages between realms (atmosphere, water column, seafloor) and there potential responses to changes in climate- changed linked ice regime at various spatial scales. Once more, the use of R/V Australis for coastal studies deemed to be extremely efficient, in terms of environmental impact (ca. 40 times less CO2 emissions than a Polar class icebreaker) and agility, allowing the Team to adapt the sampling efforts in function of the weather or anchoring conditions. Fully devoted to the expedition, the ship allowed the TANGO2 team to sample in shallow areas, not accessible to icebreakers and too far away from research stations, and which have been under sampled (based on data available from the reference information system for Antarctic marine biodiversity data, biodiversity.aq). The preliminary (meta)results accumulated during TANGO2 confirm the efficiency of using a nimble research platform to study fine-scale processes in the shallow areas of unchartered regions of the West Antarctic Peninsula. TANGO2 provides a first-hand experience to carry an future expeditions taking advantage of the low cost/low environmental impact approach, coherent with environmental conservation. Based upon Open Science approach, the combination of B121/TANGO1 and now TANGO2 efficiency in designing informed, focused expeditions, paving the way to transposing the concept developed by ...
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