Windows into Microbial Seascapes: Advances in Nanoscale Imaging and Application to Marine Sciences

Geochemical cycles of all nonconservative elements are mediated by microorganisms over nanometer spatial scales. The pelagic seascape is known to possess microstructure imposed by heterogeneous distributions of particles, polymeric gels, biologically important chemicals, and microbes. While indispensable, most traditional oceanographic observational approaches overlook this heterogeneity and ignore subtleties, such as activity hot spots, symbioses, niche partitioning, and intrapopulation phenotypic variations, that can provide a deeper mechanistic understanding of planktonic ecosystem function. As part of the movement toward cultivation-independent tools in microbial oceanography, techniques to examine the ecophysiology of individual populations and their role in chemical transformations at spatial scales relevant to microorganisms have been developed. This review presents technologies that enable geochemical and microbiological interrogations at spatial scales ranging from 0.02 to a few hundred micrometers, particularly focusing on atomic force microscopy, nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry, and confocal Raman microspectroscopy and introducing promising approaches for future applications in marine sciences.