Bacteria in Oceanic Carbon Cycling as a Molecular Problem

Abstract

Introduction This paper is written to facilitate dialogue between molecular biologists and marine microbial ecologists on research strategies in understanding the role of marine microbes in the oceanic carbon cycle. We think molecular biology can revolutionize marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry, but at this early stage the challenge is to articulate fundamental unsolved problems in a way that shows how molecular approaches might be applied. In this paper we discuss one of the central problems in oceanic carbon cycling, namely bacteria-organic matter coupling. We will explain why bacteria-organic matter coupling is an important problem, stress the need for studying the problem in a suitable ecosystem context, formulate hypotheses for future research, and suggest how molecular approaches might be of value.