Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Microbial communities are essential components of aquatic ecosystems, yet a stark contrast persists between the vast diversity revealed by environmental sequencing and the limited taxa recoverable by culturing. This disparity has contributed to a shift toward sequencing due to its cost‐effectiveness and broad applicability to ecological questions. Despite this, culturing remains essential for understanding microbial physiology and function. Here, we compare published culturing efforts between freshwater and marine ecosystems, focusing on select phytoplankton representatives, and present a case study of a successful culture collection. We highlight the critical need to sequence the genome of isolates to build reference repositories for aquatic science. We conclude with a call to action for expanded, standardized culture collections that bridge the gap between sequencing discovery and functional understanding.
DOI: 10.1002/lob.70074
Institutions: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Brown University, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Université du Québec à Montréal, Duke University, Cornell University, University of the Philippines Diliman, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: Postdoctoral Fellowship: OCE-PRF: Do diatoms use proton-pumping rhodopsins as an alternative energy source under high light, G3537699054, Eco-DAS 3.0: Ecological Dissertations in the Aquatic Sciences: Honolulu, HI - October 2020, 2022, 2024, G7736392994, STC: Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet, G9000924880
OpenAlex ID: W7225336291