Organism or group
Phytoplankton
Microscopic photosynthetic organisms drifting in sunlit water. Ocean producers account for roughly half of the carbon fixed on Earth each year.
Prochlorococcus
The smallest known photosynthetic organism, about half a micrometer across. The ocean holds an estimated 2.9 × 10²⁷ of these cells.Source: Partensky et al., 1999Source: Flombaum et al., 2013
Step 3 of 7ReadingOrganism or group
How Prochlorococcus connects
Prochlorococcus is an example of
Organism or group
Bacteria
Small single-celled organisms without a nucleus, found almost everywhere on Earth. Most bacteria in the human body are harmless, and some are helpful.
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Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
Prochlorococcus, a marine photosynthetic prokaryote of global significance (opens the original in a new tab)
Partensky F, Hess WR, Vaulot D (1999). Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 63:106-127.
Peer-reviewedReviewPresent and future global distributions of the marine Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus (opens the original in a new tab)
Flombaum P, Gallegos JL, Gordillo RA, et al. (2013). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110:9824-9829.
Peer-reviewedPrimary research