Skip to content
Marine & Freshwater Microbial Biodiversity (M&FMB)
Programme background
Exploring the microbes that make our world habitable
Water provides 97% of the living space on our planet, and some of the most extreme conditions for life. Microbes occupy all aquatic environments, often in huge numbers. Aquatic microbes influence climate and nutrients cycles. They make our planet habitable, and offer new processes and products.
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 is helping 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
The BlueMicrobe network is continuing technology transfer aspects of the programme.
About the programme