That means scientists are vastly underestimating Earth’s microbiome, microbiologist Pierre Galand of Sorbonne University in Paris said at a May 31 news conference. The new count of bacteria living in the Pacific Ocean’s coral reefs alone falls within current estimates for the total microbial diversity of Earth, suggesting that there exponentially more bacteria living on the planet than previously thought.
Last summer, a team of scientists reported on the satellite feat, which opened a window to one of the planet’s most puzzling features. The bioluminescent seas appear to originate when trillions of tiny bacteria light up in unison
