'Hot-Bunking' bacterium recycles iron to boost ocean metabolism

7:11 AM Tue 11 Jan 2011 GMT

'Got iron? It’s an essential nutrient for living things, but it’s scarce in the ocean. Scientists have found that a key marine bacterium, Crocosphaera watsonii, may have evolved a remarkable biochemical way to recycle iron for dual metabolic activities. - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution' Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that in the vast ocean where an essential nutrient?iron?is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the ocean food web survives by using a remarkable biochemical trick: It recycles iron. By day, it uses iron in enzymes for photosynthesis to make carbohydrates; then by night, it appears to reuse the same iron in different enzymes to produce organic nitrogen for proteins. The bacterium, Crocosphaera watsonii, is one of the few marine microbes that can convert nitrogen gas into organic nitrogen, which (just as it does on land) acts as fertilizer to stimulate plant growth in the ...

Click here for full story.

by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Newsfeed supplied by

#News #Cruising

Cruising

The Bar Crossing: Wait for Slack Water

Cross on slack or the first of the flood.

Cruising

Night Watch: Stay Useful After Dark

Watch stints, handovers and sleep that holds up

Nearby
Rockhampton, QLD	5 kn ESE	19°
Windiest in Australia
Cape Leeuwin, WA	26 kn NW	17°
Most Windless in Australia
Perth (Coastal), WA	Calm	13°
Hottest in Australia
Wyndham Airport, WA	8 kn WNW	29°
Coldest in Australia
Marrangaroo (Defence), NSW	Calm	3°
Wettest in Australia
Thangool Airport, QLD	55.2 mm

'Hot-Bunking' bacterium recycles iron to boost ocean metabolism

The Bar Crossing: Wait for Slack Water

Night Watch: Stay Useful After Dark

Live Weather

Nearby

Windiest in Australia

Most Windless in Australia

Hottest in Australia

Coldest in Australia

Wettest in Australia

(Other) Articles

Buy & Sell

2026 Duotone Whip

2026 Core Halo

Naish Hokua Gtw

2025 Appletree Appletree Midlength Skipper

2025 Naish Adx Nvision

RRD 2 X Kids Sail Quiver, Mast, Boom, Extens

2026 CodeFoils Race Wings

Know before you go

Download the Seabreeze app for iOS or Android.

Weather

Activities

About

Other

Support