Describing the complex chemistry of benthic seawater: from exometabolite sampling strategies to MS-based metabolomics

Covering: 1982 up to the end of 2024Marine exometabolites (EMs) are small molecules released by marine (micro)organisms into the seawater. Collectively, all of the released EMs contribute to the chemical seascape of a marine ecosystem. Accessing and describing these waterborne molecules are a key focus of various disciplinary fields that aim to study marine biogeochemical cycles, translate the chemical language of the oceans (chemical ecology), or discover new structural entities with biological properties (natural product discovery). Beginning with the semantics of marine exometabolites, this review elucidates the different sampling methods and MS-based metabolomic analyses that are used to describe the chemical composition of seawater of benthic ecosystems. These technical and analytical advances offer promising avenues for describing the structural diversity of marine exometabolites and deciphering their functions in various ecological contexts.