Microbes that dwell in nutrient-poor waters use a photopigment called retinal to harvest energy from sunshine at levels at least equal to those stored by chlorophyll-based systems.

Many types of marine plankton are either animal-like or plant-like. But a huge number are both, and they are upending ideas about ocean ecology.

Microbes were living on land as early as 3.22 billion years ago, fossilized rocks show, 500 million years earlier than previously documented.

Researchers devise more-realistic means of forecasting the effects of climate change on complex marine ecosystems.

With samples taken from the crust of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, researchers have discovered where some of the oceans’ dissolved organic carbon winds up.

How one research team studies the effects of ocean conditions on marine life

Contrary to some hypotheses, the organelles did not descend from any known lineage of Alphaproteobacteria, researchers find.

Increases in oceanic populations of these bacteria—both pathogenic and not—is an effect of climate change, scientists show.

The White House announces a new effort to study diverse microbial communities around the planet.