colored vibrio bacteria

Microbes

a close up of bacteria

Marine Microbes Overview

Curious about the microscopic world? This overview dives into everything to know.

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Featured Content

Screenshot from video showing illustrations of diverse and abundant marine microbes.

The Microbial Loop

A tree that shows the different relationships between bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes.

Marine Microbe Tree of Life

Screenshot from video with large kelp leaves floating in the ocean.

A Kelp's Slime

Ocean Food Web Listing Image

The Missing Microbial Link in the Ocean Food Web

An assortment of microbe illustrations seen by Leeuwenhoek under the microscope.

Milestones In Marine Microbiology

Microbes Articles

Red and white riftia worms living in a deep-sea vent.

Riftia Worms: One Species at a Time

an image of an underwater vent

Submarine Volcanoes and Hydrothermal Vents

The whitish spots on this fish are individual parasitic trematode worms.

Marine Parasites: Crazy…and Really Cool!

Tiny "flakes" of marine snow.

Marine Snow: A Staple of the Deep

Tiny bits and pieces of plastic can be found throughout the ocean, like these collected from the open ocean by net.

The “Plastisphere:" A new marine ecosystem

A humpback whale breaching.

Bacteria on Whale Skin Tell a Tale of Health and Sickness

A diver collects water samples.

Ocean Sampling Day – Taking the Pulse of the World’s Oceans

Pink crustose algae covers the surface of a rock.

Microbes Help Corals Pick a Home and Settle Down

The Amazon River carries all the rainwater that lands in the Amazon rainforest, covering some 2.1 million square miles, into the ocean. And with it, it carries vital nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen and silicon.

Thirty Days to Submission: How I Made a Video for Ocean180

"Barely a room onboard escaped being turned into a part of the sequencing laboratory," wrote Rob Edwards in a blog post about doing genomic sequencing at sea.

Sequencing at Sea: Studying Small Things Using Big Equipment

A view out of the tiny window of the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible.

How Methane Fueled a Food Web after the Gulf Oil Spill

Horizontal bands of color represent different species of lichen that have adapted to the conditions at different heights above sea level.

Seaside Lichens

Banner Credit

CDC/Janice Haney Carr