Off To Sea

Expanding reefs are a springboard for life in the oceans. Some bacterio-plankton and algae, floating in the upper layers of Earth’s oceans, become primary producers (photosynthesizers that make their own food) for expanding life. As they did in the shallows of early Earth, these microbes evolve a myriad of independent and interacting life styles.

(Photography by M. Despezio, courtesy Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole)