Archaea’s Role in Carbon Cycle

Bathyarchaeota undergo acetogenesis, generating organic carbon below the seafloor.

Written byCatherine Offord

| 1 min read

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Members of the phylum Bathyarchaeota are abundant in marine sediments, where they take up carbon from organic compounds in the surrounding environment. A recent study has shown that they also have the potential to fix inorganic carbon—in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2)— to generate acetate, an important fuel for other sediment-dwelling organisms such as methanogens (which include marine archaea) and heterotrophic bacteria. The products of these organisms feed back into the carbon cycle in marine sediments, where they may be consumed by other microbes.

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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