Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity: One species, a few drops of seawater, hundreds of coexisting subpopulations
Posted by Oceanography News -- ScienceDaily on 24 April, 2014
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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....