Hot-Bunking’ Bacterium Recycles Iron to Boost Ocean Metabolism

Iron Cycling Schematic - image source: WHOI News Office

Iron is an essential nutrient for living things, but is scarce in the ocean. Darwin Project researchers Stephanie Dutkiewisz, Mick Follows and Fanny Monteiro, collaborating with a team from WHOI led by Mak Saito are reporting they have found that a key marine bacterium, Crocosphaera watsonii, may have evolved a remarkable biochemical way to recycle iron for dual metabolic activities. You can read more about this work in the following WHOI News Office release or in Saito et al (2011), a recent paper in PNAS.