Comment: Mixotrophic plankton - the perfect beasts of our oceans

Oceans play a fundamental role in our lives, from being a source of food to a place to rest and relax when on holiday. Indeed, 40% of humans live within 100 km of the sea. Humans are fascinated with life in our oceans; dolphins, sharks, fish, the mysteries of the deep. However, what is not well appreciated is that all these enigmatic marine megafauna, and indeed we (humans), are ultimately dependent on single-celled marine microbes drifting in the oceans (microplankton). When first formed, the Earth’s atmosphere was akin to that of Venus, comprising primarily carbon dioxide. Over millions of years, single-celled plankton have helped remove the carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere producing the oxygen that we and other animals consume. Even in today’s world, 50% of the oxygen we breathe in is produced by these microbes. Further, various products that we use in our daily lives, such as toothpaste, food colorants and cosmetics, include components from plankton