On World Ocean Day, we celebrate the power of marine microbes The ocean is one of Earth's biggest allies in buffering climate change. But some of its most important work happens out of sight, at the scale of molecules and microbes. At the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Sammy Pontrelli and his team study how marine microbes control the fate of carbon in the ocean, and what that might teach us about the future of our climate. In the face of the climate crisis, there is growing interest in.