Playing Genetic Puzzles to Discover Unseen Majority of Tiny Ocean Organisms

The ocean is the home of many amazing living things such as fishes, shrimps, jellyfish, and seagrasses. You might have seen some of these organisms in the ocean or a beautiful aquarium. But did you know that there is another kind of marine life that dramatically outnumbers all other ocean organisms, but they are so small that you cannot even see them? They are microbes! Microbes are important for the ocean because some of them turn waste produced by other organisms back into food, and others can even influence Earth’s climate. Scientists want to learn more about ocean microbes. However, it is super hard to grow these microbes in an aquarium or a lab because we need to know exactly what they like to eat and what their favorite conditions are. What can we do? We use a cool technique called metagenomics, which can help us figure out which microbes are found in the ocean by putting together genetic puzzles!