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The deep ocean is fixing carbon in ways no one expected

Researchers have uncovered surprising evidence that the deep ocean’s carbon-fixing engine works very differently than long assumed. While ammonia-oxidizing archaea were thought to dominate carbon fixation in the sunless depths, experiments show that other microbes—especially heterotrophs—are doing far more of the work than expected. This discovery reshapes our understanding of how carbon moves through the deep ocean and stabilizes Earth’s climate.

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