Exploring Tiny Sea Life in the Sparse South Pacific Waters
Greg Howard
8th March, 2024
Image Source: Natural Science News, 2024
Key Findings
- Study in South Pacific Gyre found diverse ocean microorganisms, including overlooked fungi and protists
- Parasitic protists, mainly Syndiniales, were abundant and varied with ocean depth
- These microorganisms likely have a big role in the ocean's nutrient and carbon cycles
References
Main Study
1) Insight into planktonic protistan and fungal communities across the nutrient-depleted environment of the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
Published 5th March, 2024
https://doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.03016-23
Related Studies
2) Beyond the limits of the unassigned protist microbiome: inferring large-scale spatio-temporal patterns of Syndiniales marine parasites.
3) Genome characterization of two novel deep-sea sediment fungi, Penicillium pacificagyrus sp. nov. and Penicillium pacificasedimenti sp. nov., from South Pacific Gyre subseafloor sediments, highlights survivability.
4) The largely neglected ecological role of oceanic pelagic fungi.