The Darwin Project’s Emily Zakem, Stephanie Dutkiewicz and Mick Follows show that physiological constraints and resource competition between phytoplankton and nitrifying microorganisms in the sunlit layer can yield this ocean trait. Continue reading
Tag Archives: MIT News
Rising Temperatures are Curbing Ocean’s Capacity to Store Carbon
Study from Follows Group finds large amounts of carbon dioxide, equivalent to yearly U.K. emissions, remain in surface waters. Continue reading
Tiny bacterium provides window into whole ecosystems
Ubiquitous marine organism has co-evolved with other microbes, promoting more complex ecosystems. Continue reading
New study sets oxygen-breathing limit for ocean’s hardiest organisms.
Graduate Student Emily Zakem and advisor Mick Follows find bacteria can survive in marine environments that are almost completely starved of oxygen. Continue reading
Living a “Mixotrophic” Lifestyle
According to a new study from Darwin Project researchers Ben Ward and Mick Follows some tiny plankton may have big effect on ocean’s carbon storage. Continue reading
Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton
Study led by principal research scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz finds many species may die out and others may migrate significantly as ocean acidification intensifies. Continue reading
An Ocean of Opportunity
Using tiny marine microbes to model climate change: MIT News profiles Darwin’s Mick Follows Continue reading
Broadening the ‘SCOPE’ of microbial oceanography
With an infusion of funds from the Simons Foundation, a collaboration Darwin Project lead Mick Follows and other MIT researchers and colleagues will break new ground in the study of marine microbes. Continue reading
Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity
The smallest, most abundant marine microbe, Prochlorococcus, is a photosynthetic bacteria species essential to the marine ecosystem. An estimated billion billion billion of the single-cell creatures live in the oceans, forming the base of the marine food chain and occupying a range of ecological niches based on temperature, light and chemical preferences, and interactions with other species. But the full extent and characteristics of diversity within this single species remains a puzzle. Continue reading
For the Good of the Colony
For some microbes, the motto for growth is not so much “every cell for itself,” but rather, “all for one and one for all.”
MIT researchers have found that cells in a bacterial colony grow in a way that benefits the community as a whole. That is, while an individual cell may divide in the presence of plentiful resources to benefit itself, when a cell is a member of a larger colony, it may choose instead to grow in a more cooperative fashion, increasing an entire colony’s chance of survival.