Phys.org  August 14, 2024 Heterotrophic Bacteria and Archaea (prokaryotes) are a major component of marine food webs and global biogeochemical cycles. Yet, there is limited understanding about how prokaryotes vary across global environmental gradients, and how their global abundance and metabolic activity (production and respiration) may be affected by climate change. An international team of researchers (Australia, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Canada) used global datasets of prokaryotic abundance, cell carbon and metabolic activity to show that mean prokaryotic biomass varies by just under 3-fold across the global surface ocean, while total prokaryotic metabolic activity increases by more than one order […]