Paper for children published - Understanding Marine Microbes, the Driving Engines of the Ocean

When you hear the word microbes, what comes to your mind? Something much too small to see and that makes you fall ill? Just because some microbes cause diseases that does not mean they are all evil. For example, in the marine (ocean) environment, the vast majority of microbes are good ones. They are the “driving engines” of the ocean and are essential for the health of our whole planet. Unfortunately, most of the marine microbes and their interactions with the marine environment are poorly understood. So, it is important to get an idea of which microbes are helping us and how they are doing this. These data will provide scientists with the knowledge to fight against big global challenges, such as climate change and environmental pollution. Unfortunately, it is very hard to study marine microbes due to their microscopic size, huge diversity, and their big home – the ocean. Therefore, we would like to engage “citizen scientists” in this project to help us to sample marine microbes so that we can identify them.

We would like to dedicate this Frontier paper for Young Minds to Nicolò who was born today.

Paper for Download (PDF)

Link to the Paper (open access)