arsenic
Research Article | Ecological and Evolutionary ScienceA Parasitic Arsenic Cycle That Shuttles Energy from Phytoplankton to Heterotrophic BacterioplanktonIn vast, warm regions of the oceans, phytoplankton face the problem of arsenic poisoning. Arsenate is toxic because it is chemically similar to phosphate, a scarce nutrient that phytoplankton cells need for growth. Many phytoplankton, including the commonest phytoplankton type in warm oceans, Prochlorococcus, detoxify arsenate by adding methyl groups. Here we show that the most abundant non-photosynthetic plankton in the oceans...