The Biological Pump: A Hunt For Microbial Key Players Involved in Ocean Carbon and Nutrient Fluxes

The biological carbon pump is a critical component of the Earth's carbon cycle, involving the uptake and fixation of inorganic carbon into organic matter by autotrophic organisms and its subsequent transportation into the ocean's depths. However, this is not a one-way transit and involves numerous interlinked pathways influenced by biotic and abiotic processes, such as gravitational settlement of marine snow derived from phytoplankton; migration of vertebrates and invertebrates through the water column; impact of viruses, and contribution of lateral or vertical currents.

This Research Topic aims to better understand the role of marine microorganisms in the ocean biological carbon pump and their connections to other nutrient cycles. By focusing on these microbial key players, we seek to elucidate their contributions to biogeochemical processes and the potential discovery of new metabolic pathways.

We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Opinion, Methods and Perspective articles on the following subjects:

• Reporting the role of yet unexplored microbes that may play a role in ocean biogeochemical cycles;

• Describing new metabolic pathways that provide further understanding of microbially mediated marine biogeochemical cycles;

• Reporting of hidden or unidentified potential energy and carbon sources that can fuel microbial metabolism;

• Interactions between microbes and other organisms that occur through the water column and their effect on the biological carbon pump (such as microbial degradation of DOM released by migrating organisms);

• Impact of viruses on the biological carbon pump. For example whether cell lysis- or auxiliary metabolic genes integrated in the host cell genomes might affect the host's role in the pump.

This Research Topic is available in the Aquatic Microbiology and Marine Biogeochemistry sections of Frontiers in Microbiology and Frontiers in Marine Science, authors can submit their work to their preferred specialty.

Keywords: biological pump, biogeochemical cycles, microbial metabolism, auxiliary metabolic genes, ocean carbon cycle, biological carbon pump

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.