Out of the blue
Marine and Freshwater Microbial Biodiversity (M&FMB)
Water provides 97% of the living space on our planet, and some of the most extreme conditions for life.
Microbes - single-celled plants and animals, bacteria, archaea and viruses - occupy all aquatic environments, often in huge numbers.
Aquatic microbes influence climate and how nutrients are recycled across the globe. They make our planet habitable. They offer new processes and products, including antibiotics, yet we've only just begun to explore their vast variation.
The Marine & Freshwater Microbial Biodiversity programme ran from 2000 - 2005. NERC invested nearly £7m in the programme. The programme supported over 30 research projects, involving 120 scientists in universities and NERC Centres and Surveys.
The programme investigated:
- the diversity of microbes in coastal seas, the deep ocean and freshwater,
- how aquatic microbial communities function and interact,
- how aquatic microbes affect global processes like nutrient cycling and climate regulation,
- possibilities for new products and processes to benefit humankind.
The research will help us:
- appreciate the full range and complexity of life on Earth, and the role of microbes in its evolution,
- improve techniques for isolating and cultivating microbes,
- use the unexplored biochemical diversity of aquatic microbes to generate novel drugs, enzymes and industrial reagents,
- tackle the problem of microbial fouling on ship hulls and other wet surfaces, including medical implants, food processing facilities and bioreactors,
- predict how microbes will be involved in human-driven changes to climate and biogeochemical cycles.
A set of eight leaflets about the M&FMB programme are available to download. Paper copies are no longer available.
Viruses - the unseen players (PDF document (186Kb)
Deep-sea discoveries (PDF document (209Kb)
Everything everywhere? (PDF document (189Kb)
Nature's chattering classes (PDF document (180Kb)
From research bench to market place (PDF document (173Kb)
Aquatic microbes shape our world (PDF document (189Kb)
Classifying, culturing and curating microbes (PDF document (189Kb)
Sampling the blue planet (PDF document (190Kb)
Over 150 novel microbial isolates and strains arising from the programme will be available for further research, through cultures held at UK National Culture Collections.
More information
You can contact the investigators mentioned on the leaflets, or the Science
Co-ordinator:
Phil Williamson
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
Tel: 01603 593111