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Un mar microbià
Summary
This Catalan educational article explains that microorganisms dominate marine life and describes the ocean as a vast microbial ecosystem largely invisible to the naked eye. It aims to communicate marine microbiology to a general audience and contextualize the microbial world of the sea.
catalaEls oceans cobreixen aproximadament el 71 % de la superficie terrestre i, amb una mitjana de 3,4 km de fondaria, representen l’habitat mes gran per a la vida. Quan pensem en aquesta vida marina, de seguida ens venen al cap tot un seguit d’organismes, tant animals com plantes de mida gran. En realitat, pero, els organismes que predominen al mar son invisibles als ulls, el 90 % dels organismes marins son microorganismes. De fet, si agafem una culleradeta d’aigua de qualsevol ambient, sigui polar, tropical, costaner, de mar obert, etc., tipicament trobarem que aquest conte deu milions de virus, un milio de bacteris, cent mil arqueus i deu mil microeucariotes. Els microorganismes marins, pero, no son unicament importants per la seva enorme abundancia i ubiquitat, sino tambe pel paper fonamental que tenen en els cicles biogeoquimics al mar. Aquesta revisio vol donar a coneixer els microorganismes marins, els seus components, la seva funcio a l’ocea, i els reptes en el seu coneixement que afronten els cientifics en aquest segle.Paraules clau: bacteris, virus, arqueus, diversitat, funcio, canvi global i microplastics. EnglishOceans cover approximately 71 % of the Earth’s surface and, with an average depth of 3.4 km, they are the largest habitat for life. When we talk of marine life, we quickly think of large organisms, including both animals and plants. The fact is that the predominant organisms in the sea are invisible to the naked eye: 90 % of all marine organisms are microorganisms. Indeed, if we take a spoonful of seawater from any environment, i.e. polar, tropical, coastal, open sea, etc., we typically find about 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 100,000 archaea and 10,000 microeukaryotes. Marine microorganisms, however, are not only important because of their great abundance and ubiquity, but because they play a key role in marine biogeochemical cycles. This review briefly introduces marine microorganisms, their components and their function, together with some of the challenges that scientists face in their study in this century.Keywords: bacteria, virus, archaea, diversity, function, global change, microplastics.