A teaspoon of seawater contains more than a million marine bacteria. These tiny microbes play pivotal roles in governing the chemical cycles that control our climate and shape the health of the global ocean, but are they passive drifters or purposeful hunters?
Microbial organisms can also capture carbon and this is why the sea is the greatest carbon bank we have.
New research demonstrates that bacteria in the ocean use similar behaviours to many foraging animals, swimming through their environment while hunting and selecting their preferred “food” among a soup of chemicals in seawater.
Image: Image: Shutterstock – zaferkizilkaya
Produced By: Roderick Chambers
Featured In Story: Professor Justin Seymour Leader Ocean Microbiology Group in the Climate Change Cluster University of Technology Sydney
First aired on The Wire, Tuesday 21 June 2022