A study led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) has revealed critical new details about one of the ocean's most abundant life forms—SAR11 marine bacteria. Understanding these microbes is vital because they are one of the main drivers of the global ocean's life-support system; they move and recycle the carbon and nutrients that sustain all other marine life. By better understanding them, scientists can more accurately predict how the entire ocean ecosystem, and the global climate, will react to threats like pollution and ocean warming.