The teams from the Malpelo Mission have returned to Colombia but this time they are on the coast of the Caribbean Sea near Santa Marta, Colombia. This relatively unstudied area is an extension of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta National Natural Park.
The scientific teams on site are from UMR Marbec, which combines staff from IRD, Ifremer, UM and CNRS.
The research targets on this mission are to catch fish for species identification and eDNA (species identification through genetic coding), and record species and abundance via fixed cameras on the seafloor and baited cameras. The footage from the cameras is used to cross reference the data collected through water filtering for eDNA.