The Phytoplankton's Profound Affect on the Ocean's Cycle and Storage of Carbon

Published on 21 January 2025 at 21:20

In this post I will be examining an article on how scientists found a new way in which phytoplankton are involved in the ocean's cycling and storage of carbon. The article writes about MIT scientists and their discovery of how the phytoplankton, Prohlorococcus, contributes to the ocean's nutrient cycles by cross-feeding DNA building blocks to other microbes.

Here are some notes I gathered:

Cross-feeding: one microbe produces a substance that another microbe then uses as a food source or nutrient
The Prohlorococcus cross feeds with other ocean microbes like SAR11
- The helps microbial communities grow sustainably and synchronize their metabolic rhythms
Analysis of over 300 heterotrophic microbes showed many microbes have genes to absorb and use the substances from Prohlorococcus, showing a diversity of cross-feeding strategies

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