{"id":154816,"date":"2022-02-02T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T18:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=154816"},"modified":"2022-02-04T11:59:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T21:59:28","slug":"diverse-microbes-scarce-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/02\/02\/diverse-microbes-scarce-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"How do diverse microbes co-exist with scarce resources?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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糖心视频<\/abbr> research vessel Kilo Moana<\/em>. (Photo credit: Tara Clemente\/ 糖心视频<\/abbr>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The coexistence of diverse microbes in the open ocean is made possible by staggering the timing of nutrient uptake, according to a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution<\/em><\/a> by a group of researchers from 13 institutions, including the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa.<\/p>\n

Microorganisms are highly abundant on the ocean surface, reaching densities exceeding a billion organisms per liter. Collectively responsible for roughly half of global photosynthesis, various groups of microbes coexist while relying on limited nutrients, such as nitrogen and iron. Scientists have been puzzled about how this robust population of ocean microbes persists through relentless competition for scarce nutrients.<\/p>\n

“This study shows the true strength of scientific collaboration where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” said Dave Karl<\/strong>, co-director of the Simons Foundation<\/a>\u2019s Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology<\/a> (SCOPE<\/abbr>) based in the 糖心视频<\/abbr> Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology <\/a>(SOEST<\/abbr>). “By bringing experts from different subdisciplines to work together we can address complex and challenging ecological questions that no one investigator or laboratory would be able to achieve.”<\/p>\n