More than 20,000 types of bacteria in a liter of seawater!

One liter of seawater can contain more than 20,000 different types of bacteria, a recent discovery by scientists.

Biodiversity in seawater may be 10 to 100 times higher than expected (Photo: BBC)

This huge number has been determined by an international project to classify life in the ocean. Research shows that bacterial biodiversity is many times larger than scientists thought.

Scientist Mitchell Sogin and colleagues from the Marine Life Survey (CoML) project used a new device that allows rapid identification of individual organisms by detecting DNA fragments.

They took seawater from eight different locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 550-4,100 m, including in harsh environments - too hot or too cold. They hope to discover about 2,000 species of organisms / 1 liter of water. And they were shocked to discover the biodiversity in a liter of larger seawater they thought ten times.'It really shows our lack of understanding,' said Dr. Sogin.

WALL VY