Whether a small cell, a small genome or a minimal set of chemical reactions with self-
replicating properties, simplicity is beguiling. As Leonardo da Vinci reportedly said,'simplicity …

The marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus is the smallest and most abundant
photosynthetic organism on Earth. In this Review, we summarize our understanding of the …

A process of global importance in carbon cycling is the remineralization of algae biomass by
heterotrophic bacteria, most notably during massive marine algae blooms. Such blooms can …

Plastic pollution is now recognised as a major threat to marine environments and marine
biota. Recent research highlights that diverse microbial species are found to colonise plastic …

SAR11 is a group of small, carbon-oxidizing bacteria that reach a global estimated
population size of 2.4× 1028 cells—approximately 25% of all plankton. They are found …

Recent studies suggest that unidentified prokaryotes fix inorganic carbon at globally
significant rates in the immense dark ocean. Using single-cell sorting and whole-genome …

Bacteria in the 16S rRNA clade SAR86 are among the most abundant uncultivated
constituents of microbial assemblages in the surface ocean for which little genomic …

Metagenomics literally means “beyond the genome.” Marine microbial metagenomic
databases presently comprise∼ 400 billion base pairs of DNA, only∼ 3% of that found in 1 …

Four mesophilic, neutrophilic, and aerobic marine ammonia-oxidizing archaea, designated
strains SCM1T, HCA1T, HCE1T and PS0T, were isolated from a tropical marine fish tank …

Ocean warming occurs every year in seasonal cycles that can help us to understand long-
term responses of plankton to climate change. Rhythmic seasonal patterns of microbial …