The sea is of microbes

2010/04/20 Aulestiarte Lete, Izaro - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Mikrobiologia
• Ozeanografia

Researchers who have been observing the world's oceans will have to review calculations on the number of underwater microbial species. Precisely because a census has just clarified that microbial diversity can be a hundred times greater than expected. Then, microbiologists had identified 6,000 types of microbes and predicted they could find 600,000.

After collecting samples from around 1,200 locations around the world, ICoMM researchers have developed a database of 18 million microbial DNA sequences and have identified hundreds of thousands of different microbes. Thus they have calculated that in the oceans there can be at least 20 million types of microbes. However, the real amount can also reach billions or trilions.

Photo: D. D. J. Patterson, L Amaral-Zettler, M. Peglar and T. Nerad / TFM