New research reveals how tiny sea-faring microbes compete for nutrients and help regulate the planet’s climate.

Trillions of ocean microbes quietly break down carbon, playing a major role in regulating Earth's climate — but their complexity has made them hard to study. USC Dornsife researchers analyzed genetic data from thousands of marine microbes and used machine learning to group them into eight behavioral clusters, revealing that fast-growing "generalists" dominate nutrient-rich coastal waters while slower "specialists" thrive in open-ocean environments. This simpler framework could improve climate models and help scientists better predict how much carbon the ocean will store as the planet warms.