Bacteria in the ocean might be the main driver of processes that trap carbon in complex molecules in sea water.

Ronald Benner at the University of South Carolina in Columbia and his team placed bacteria from coastal sea water in a simulated ocean environment containing simple sugars. After 29 days, they observed that these sugars had been converted by the bacteria to complex molecules like those found in the ocean. The team suggests that bacteria are responsible for much of the carbon in such organic particles in the ocean, and that models of how atmospheric carbon is trapped should consider how rapidly bacteria can produce these compounds.

Nature Commun. 6, 6711 (2015)