The Wire

A teaspoon of seawater contains more than a million marine bacteria. These tiny microbes play pivotal roles in governing the chemical cycles that control our climate and shape the health of the global ocean, but are they passive drifters or purposeful hunters?

Microbial organisms can also capture carbon and this is why the sea is the greatest carbon bank we have.

New research demonstrates that bacteria in the ocean use similar behaviours to many foraging animals, swimming through their environment while hunting and selecting their preferred “food” among a soup of chemicals in seawater.