There are trillions of tiny, single-celled organisms in the ocean that biologists know virtually nothing about. It drives AAAS member Alexandra Worden crazy.
The marine microbiologist is particularly intrigued by picoeukaryotes—supersmall microbes she suspects play a much larger role in the climate change equation than they get credit for.
These “euks,” as Worden calls them, are single-celled organisms that have a nucleus, are smaller than 2 microns and photosynthesize. They have been largely ignored by researchers because they are far less prevalent than cyanobacteria, which are the most abundant organisms on Earth.
“It was insane to me trying to describe the world based on just the easy stuff to measure and leave gapping holes,” said Worden, who runs the microbial oceanography lab at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Moss Landing, California.
Photo credit: Trudi Romeo