The Ocean Microbiome Revolution: Linking Microbial Functions to Marine Biogeochemical Cycles

The ocean microbiome constitutes one of the most dynamic and functionally critical components of the Earth system, fundamentally regulating global biogeochemical cycles, climate feedbacks, and marine ecosystem resilience. Marine microorganisms. including bacteria, archaea, protists, and viruses, mediate key transformations of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and other elements through complex metabolic networks and tightly coupled ecological interactions. These processes not only sustain ocean productivity but also influence atmospheric chemistry and global climate regulation.Despite rapid advances in sequencing technologies and environmental monitoring, our understanding of how microbial genes, metabolites, and interspecies interactions scale up to ecosystem-level functions remains limited. In particular, the mechanistic links between microbial functional potential, in situ activity, and emergent biogeochemical outcomes are still poorly resolved. Moreover, ongoing environmental changes, such as ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, anthropogenic pollution, and land-use change are reshaping microbial community structure and function in ways that are not yet predictable.This Research Topic aims to advance a mechanistic and integrative understanding of the ocean microbiome by bridging molecular-scale processes with ecosystem-scale consequences. Like how cross-kingdom interactions in terrestrial systems regulate nutrient exchange and ecosystem functioning, marine microbial communities operate through intricate networks of microbe–microbe and virus–microbe interactions that govern metabolic fluxes and biogeochemical transformations in the ocean. By leveraging multi-omics approaches, experimental systems, and data-driven modeling, this Topic seeks to uncover how microbial diversity and interactions shape ocean chemistry and ecosystem dynamics.We welcome contributions that move beyond descriptive surveys to provide hypothesis-driven, process-oriented insights into marine microbial ecology and function. By integrating advances in omics technologies, experimental manipulation, and computational frameworks, this Topic aims to establish new paradigms for understanding and predicting the role of the ocean microbiome in a rapidly changing world.Topics include, but are not limited to:• Functional roles of marine microbiomes in global biogeochemical cycling, with a focus on key marine ecosystems such as coastal wetlands, estuaries, and open oceans. • Integration of multi-omics approaches (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics/lipidomics) to resolve microbial activity. • Microbe–microbe and virus–microbe interactions shaping community metabolism and ecosystem processes. • Microbial responses and adaptive strategies under environmental stressors (e.g., warming, acidification, deoxygenation, pollution, land-use change). • Data-driven and method-oriented advances, including workflows, benchmarking, standards, and reference datasets. • Linking microbial functional traits and metabolic networks to ecosystem-level processes and predictions. Topic editors: Ruiwen Hu, Xiaoli Yu, Wen Song Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81385/the-ocean-microbiome-revolution-linking-microbial-functions-to-marine-biogeochemical-cycles