ABOVE: Choanoflagellates (pictured here in a multicellular state) are eukaryotes that feed on bacteria in the ocean. © THIBAUT BRUNET, KING LAB
A few years ago, Alexandra Worden was watching as an $800,000 medical-grade fluorescence activated single-cell sorter dangled from a crane, about to be loaded onto a research vessel—and hoping the crane operator appreciated just how delicate the equipment was. The marine microbial ecologist and her colleagues were about to set sail on the Atlantic Ocean to collect unicellular eukaryotes and sequester them individually for single-cell whole-genome sequencing. The trip was part of a survey that also included expeditions on the Pacific Ocean to find archaea, bacteria, and other organisms associated with these microbes. Worden and her collaborators wanted to avoid bringing the seawater samples back to the lab, which would risk distorting the biodiversity of the sample—“some guys just don’t make it,” says Worden, especially when it can ...
