Mapping the ocean’s unseen heroes, one microbe at a time

The picture of how climate change is impacting our ocean is often told via its larger inhabitants: scrawny polar bears, bleached coral, dwindling catch in fishing nets. But, just as importantly, microscopic marine organisms play an essential role in our biosphere.

Not only do marine microbes form the foundational building blocks of the underwater food-web, but it’s estimated that marine microbes consume almost 50% of the Earth’s carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis.

Invisible to the naked eye, the health and movement of marine microbes that drift as part of the plankton is difficult to picture even for scientists – let alone everyday citizens.

This challenge, to visualise the range of conditions that drifting marine microbes encounter, brought a group of expert scientists and visual designers together on a path to create the online citizen science project Adrift.