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Microbiological oceanography

Hidden in a sea of microbes

Nature volume 415, pages 590–591 (2002)Cite this article

The photosynthetic activities of bacteria in the oceans are more diverse than previously thought. A full picture of the marine energy budget will require their separate contributions to be teased apart.

Green plants have been using oxygenic photosynthesis, in which oxygen is released, for more than 3 billion years. But there are two other non-oxygenic photosynthetic pathways, used not by green plants, but by certain bacteria. One pathway is known as anaerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis (AnAnP), because it can occur in the absence of oxygen; it pre-dates oxygenic photosynthesis, and is nowadays restricted to a few groups of bacteria that inhabit sunlit, oxygen-free habitats. The other pathway — aerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis (AAnP) — requires oxygen but does not generate it as a by-product; this pathway was discovered in marine bacteria only twenty years ago1.

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Figure 1: A current view of the complex relationships between sunlight, biological energy production and dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the open sea.

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  1. School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 96822, Hawaii, USA

    David M. Karl

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  1. David M. Karl
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Correspondence to David M. Karl.

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Karl, D. Hidden in a sea of microbes. Nature 415, 590–591 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/415590b

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