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Drivers and Consequences of Size Declines in Unicells
Dustin J Marshall1, Hayley E Cameron2, Akira Abe1
1School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Ecology Letters
|May 6, 2026
Summary
Warming causes microbes like bacteria and yeasts to shrink, impacting ecosystem functions. Updated metabolic scaling reveals altered respiration projections, affecting the biological carbon pump.
Area of Science:
- Microbial ecology
- Ecosystem science
- Climate change biology
Background:
- Unicellular microbes (bacteria, protists, yeasts) are vital ecosystem components.
- Warming temperatures are known to reduce protist cell size, but impacts on bacteria and yeasts, and consequences for ecosystem functions, are unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate warming-induced changes in unicellular microbial cell size across bacteria, protists, and yeasts.
- To re-evaluate the relationship between unicellular size and metabolic scaling.
- To predict the consequences of altered cell size and metabolic scaling on ecosystem functions under warming.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of preliminary evidence for warming-mediated cell size changes in bacteria and yeasts.
- Re-estimation of metabolic scaling relationships for unicellular organisms.
- Theoretical assessment of size, temperature, and demographic relationships.
Main Results:
- Warming-induced cell size reduction observed in protists also applies to bacteria and yeasts.
- Previous estimates of metabolic scaling were systematically mis-estimated.
- Updated metabolic scaling shifts projections of warming effects on microbial respiration from superlinear to sublinear, impacting the biological carbon pump.
Conclusions:
- Warming-driven microbial size reduction has significant, underestimated consequences for ecosystem services.
- Uncertainty remains regarding how warming alters unicellular population dynamics due to ambivalent theoretical relationships.
- Improved models are needed to predict microbial responses to climate change and their ecosystem-level impacts.
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