ecosystem importance: in a newly found carbon cycle (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 12, 2022, 16:54 (832 days ago) @ David Turell

Sea bottom discovery:

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/scientists-discover-an-immense-unknown-hy...

"...in a study published last year, researchers uncovered a completely unknown cycle of natural hydrocarbon emissions and recycling facilitated by a diverse range of tiny organisms – which could help us better understand how some microbes have the power to clean up the mess an oil spill leaves in the ocean. "Just two types of marine cyanobacteria are adding up to 500 times more hydrocarbons to the ocean per year than the sum of all other types of petroleum inputs to the ocean, including natural oil seeps, oil spills, fuel dumping and run-off from land,"

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:These hydrocarbons, primarily in the form of pentadecane (nC15), are spread across 40 percent of Earth's surface, and other microbes feast on them. They're constantly being cycled in such a way that Love and colleagues estimate only around 2 million metric tons are present in the water at any one time [by]A species of the globally distributed marine cyanobacteria, Prochlorococcus.

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"Analysing their data, they found concentrations of pentadecane increased with greater abundance of cyanobacteria cells, and the hydrocarbon's geographic and vertical distribution were consistent with these microbes' ecology. Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are responsible for around a quarter of the global ocean's conversion of sunlight energy into organic matter (primary production) and previous laboratory cultivation revealed they produce pentadecane in the process. Valentine explains the cyanobacteria likely use pentadecane as a stronger component for highly curved cellular membranes, like those found in chloroplasts (the organelle that photosynthesise). The cycle of pentadecane in the ocean also follows the diel cycling of these cyanobacteria – their vertical migration in the water in response to changes of light intensity throughout a day. Together, these findings suggest the cyanobacteria are indeed the source of the biological pentadecane, which is then consumed by other microorganisms that produce the carbon dioxide the cyanobacteria then use to continue the cycle. Earth's natural hydrocarbon cycle."

Comment: remember, it is cyanobacteria that maintain oxygen in the atmosphere. This is a vital ecosystem.