Credit: Alena Sakovich and Clara Manno
The ocean’s smallest organisms could hold the biggest clues to Earth’s climate future.
The ocean’s tiniest engineers, calcifying plankton, play a vital yet often unnoticed role in regulating Earth’s climate by capturing and recycling carbon.
A new review published in Science by an international research team led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) reveals that these organisms—coccolithophores, foraminifers, and pteropods—are oversimplified or excluded in many of the climate models used to forecast the planet’s future.
The ocean’s smallest organisms could hold the biggest clues to Earth’s climate future.
The ocean’s tiniest engineers, calcifying plankton, play a vital yet often unnoticed role in regulating Earth’s climate by capturing and recycling carbon.
A new review published in Science by an international research team led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) reveals that these organisms—coccolithophores, foraminifers, and pteropods—are oversimplified or excluded in many of the climate models used to forecast the planet’s future.
Overlooked impact on carbon cycling
By leaving out these plankton, current climate models may fail to account for crucial mechanisms in the global carbon cycle and underestimate the ocean’s ability to adapt to climate change. Calcifying plankton form delicate shells made of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), which are central to the ocean’s carbon balance.
Credit: Michaël Grelaud
Through their life processes, they alter seawater chemistry and drive the movement of carbon from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. This natural “carbon pump” helps stabilize Earth’s climate and has long influenced both ocean chemistry and the fossil record.
“Plankton shells are tiny, but together they shape the chemistry of our oceans and the climate of our planet,” said Patrizia Ziveri, ICREA research professor at ICTA-UAB and lead author of the study. “By leaving them out of climate models, we risk overlooking fundamental processes that determine how the Earth system responds to climate change.”
Through their life processes, they alter seawater chemistry and drive the movement of carbon from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. This natural “carbon pump” helps stabilize Earth’s climate and has long influenced both ocean chemistry and the fossil record.
“Plankton shells are tiny, but together they shape the chemistry of our oceans and the climate of our planet,” said Patrizia Ziveri, ICREA research professor at ICTA-UAB and lead author of the study. “By leaving them out of climate models, we risk overlooking fundamental processes that determine how the Earth system responds to climate change.”
Different coccolithophore species.
Credit: Jeremy Young
The researchers also found that much of the calcium carbonate produced by these organisms never settles on the ocean floor. Instead, a large portion dissolves in the upper layers of the ocean through a process known as “shallow dissolution.”
This phenomenon, driven by biological factors such as predation, particle aggregation, and microbial respiration, significantly alters ocean chemistry. Despite its importance, shallow dissolution remains largely missing from the major Earth System Models (e.g., CMIP6) that guide global climate predictions.
Diversity among plankton groups and vulnerabilities
The study highlights the unique traits of different calcifying plankton groups, which determine their geographic distribution, ecological role, and vulnerabilities. Coccolithophores, the main producers of CaCO₃, are especially sensitive to acidification, as they lack specialized pumps to remove acidity from their cells.
Credit: Michaël Grelaud
Foraminifers and pteropods do, but they face different pressures, from oxygen loss to warming waters. Together, these groups shape the fate of carbon in the ocean. Ignoring their diversity risks oversimplifying how the ocean responds to climate stressors.
Toward better climate modeling and prediction
The paper calls for urgent efforts to better quantify group-specific production, dissolution, and export of calcium carbonate, and to incorporate these dynamics into climate models. Doing so would allow for more accurate projections of ocean–atmosphere feedbacks, carbon sequestration, and even the interpretation of sediment records used to reconstruct past climates.
Foraminifers and pteropods do, but they face different pressures, from oxygen loss to warming waters. Together, these groups shape the fate of carbon in the ocean. Ignoring their diversity risks oversimplifying how the ocean responds to climate stressors.
Toward better climate modeling and prediction
The paper calls for urgent efforts to better quantify group-specific production, dissolution, and export of calcium carbonate, and to incorporate these dynamics into climate models. Doing so would allow for more accurate projections of ocean–atmosphere feedbacks, carbon sequestration, and even the interpretation of sediment records used to reconstruct past climates.
Credit: Sonia Chaabane and Thibault de Garidel-Thoron
“If we ignore the ocean’s smallest organisms, we might miss important climate dynamics,” says Dr. Ziveri. “Integrating calcifying plankton into climate models could offer sharper predictions and deeper insights into how ecosystems and societies may be affected.”
The researchers conclude that addressing these knowledge gaps is critical to developing a new generation of climate models that better capture the biological complexity of the oceans.
“If we ignore the ocean’s smallest organisms, we might miss important climate dynamics,” says Dr. Ziveri. “Integrating calcifying plankton into climate models could offer sharper predictions and deeper insights into how ecosystems and societies may be affected.”
The researchers conclude that addressing these knowledge gaps is critical to developing a new generation of climate models that better capture the biological complexity of the oceans.
A coccosphere of Rabdosphaera clavigera, collected in the surface waters of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Credit: Patrizia Ziveri
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