Volume 20 Issue 02

Volume 20 | Number 2 | June 2007

Special Issue: A Sea of Microbes

On the Cover: The genome to biome collage represents the key elements that make up the science of microbial oceanography. Groupings from top to bottom: The genome represents microbial oceanography today and the study of the very language of cells to understand how they have adapted to life in the ocean. The “Sea of Microbes” depicted here in a virus (right, courtesy of John Waterbury), a bacterial assemblage (lower left, courtesy of Stephen Giovannoni), and a microeukaryote (diatom, top, courtesy of Mark Webber in collaboration with Elaine Humphrey) represent the linchpin of the ocean’s food web and the top of this special issue. A wide variety of instruments (e.g., top, see p. 77 in this issue) are required to comb the seas for these microbes and to study them in their native habitats. These microbes inhabit diverse environments in the global ocean—represented by the North Pacific Gyre, a coral reef, and a polar ice-covered habitat (courtesy of T. Hollibaugh)—and play crucial roles in the health and functioning of all habitats in the ocean. Behind all of this science are the students and scientists (no shown) who set out to decipher what the microbes have to say and how they will respond to global changes.

Cover PDF

SPECIAL ISSUE FEATURES

Foundations of Microbial Oceanography
By David M. Karl and Lita M. Proctor

The Microbial Loop
By Lawrence R. Pomeroy , Peter J. leB. Williams , Farooq Azam, and John E. Hobbie

Patterns and Prediction in Microbial Oceanography
By John J. Cullen , W. Ford Doolittle, Simon A. Levin , and William K.W. Li

Genomes of Sea Microbes
By Mary Ann Moran and E. Virginia Armbrust

Marine Environmental Genomics: Unlocking the Ocean's Secrets
By Robert A. Edwards and Elizabeth A. Dinsdale

New Cultivation Strategies Bring More Microbial Plankton Species into the Laboratory
By Stephen J. Giovannoni , Rachel A. Foster , Michael S. Rappé , and Slava Epstein

In Situ Instrumentation
By John Paul , Chris Scholin , Ger van den Engh , and Mary Jane Perry

Energy Cycle in the Ocean: Powering the Microbial World
By Zbigniew Kolber

Microbes and the Dissipation of Energy and Respiration: From Cells to Ecosystems
By Craig A. Carlson , Paul A. del Giorgio, and Gerhard J. Herndl

What's New in the Nitrogen Cycle?
By Bess B. Ward, Douglas G. Capone, and Jonathan P. Zehr

Microbes and the Marine Phosphorus Cycle
By Sonya T. Dyhrman, James W. Ammerman, and Benjamin A.S. Van Mooy

The Sulfur Cycle
By Stefan M. Sievert, Ronald P. Kiene , and Heide N. Schulz-Vogt

Microbial Domains in the Ocean: A Lesson from the Archaea
By Edward F. DeLong

Oceanic Protists
By Barry F. Sherr , Evelyn B. Sherr , David A. Caron, Daniel Vaulot, and Alexandra Z. Worden

Exploring the Vast Diversity of Marine Viruses
By Mya Breitbart , Luke R. Thompson, Curtis A. Suttle, and Matthew B. Sullivan

Microbiology in Polar Oceans
By James T. Hollibaugh, Connie Lovejoy , and Alison E. Murray

Coral Microbiology
By Eugene Rosenberg , Christina A. Kellogg , and Forest Rohwer

Modeling and Prediction of Marine Microbial Populations in the Genomic Era
By Raleigh R. Hood, Edward A. Laws, Michael J. Follows, and David A. Siegel

Predictions for the Future of Microbial Oceanography
By David L. Kirchman and Carlos Pedrós-Alió

BREAKING WAVES

RAPID: Research on Automated Plankton Identification
By Mark C. Benfield , Philippe Grosjean, Phil F. Culverhouse, Xabier Irigoien, Michael E. Sieracki , Angel Lopez-Urrutia, Hans G. Dam, Qiao Hu, Cabell S. Davis , Allen Hanson, Cynthia H. Pilskaln, Edward M. Riseman, Howard Schultz , Paul E. Utgoff , and Gabriel Gorsky