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SUNDAY SCIENCE: SAVE THE WHALES. BUT SAVE THE MICROBES, TOO.  
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Carl Zimmer
October 17, 2025
The New York Times
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_ Conservation biologists propose a daunting task: protecting
Earth’s diversity of bacteria and other microbes. _

Colorful microbial mats, composed of thermophilic microbes, surround
a bubbling hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming., Jon G.
Fuller/VWPics, via Associated Press

 

Hundreds of scientists have joined together to save a group of species
from extinction, a group that might not seem like it needs saving:
microbes.

Microbes need protection for many reasons, researchers say, including
the fact that other species — indeed, entire ecosystems — depend
on their well-being. “We need them in order to help conserve the
pandas and the rainforests and the whales and the oceans and
everything else in between,” said Jack Gilbert, a microbiologist at
the University of California, San Diego.

We are living through an extinction crisis
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but nearly all of the extinctions conservation biologists have
definitively documented so far have involved animals or plants. On
Friday
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the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which publishes a
list of endangered and vulnerable species, announced the newest
additions, including the slender-billed curlew
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shorebird and an ebonylike tree called Diospyros angulata
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Humans are driving these species to extinction by hunting them,
destroying wetlands and other habitats, cutting down forests, and
heating the planet. But as powerful as these pressures are, extinction
is not inevitable. On Friday, the I.U.C.N. also announced
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the green sea turtle had rebounded, thanks to measures such as
protecting the eggs the animals lay on beaches. The organization has
officially changed the status of the species from endangered to least
concern.

But animals and plants represent only a fraction of the biological
diversity on the planet. Fungi — which are a separate lineage from
animals and plants — include millions
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perhaps even tens of millions
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species. But I.U.C.N. scientists started assessing their status only a
decade ago, and so far they’ve evaluated just 1,300 species.
That’s enough species to reveal that fungi are also gravely
threatened. One-third of those 1,300 species are at risk of
extinction
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Now I.U.C.N. researchers are casting an even wider net: They’re
setting out to protect the world’s diversity of bacteria and other
microbes.

This may be the most daunting effort in the history of conservation.
Microbes make up the most of the genetic diversity on Earth, but
microbiologists have barely begun cataloging them. All told, there may
be 100 billion species of microbes.

Making the task even harder, microbes are largely invisible to the
naked eye; even under a microscope, two distinct species may look
identical. And microbes live just about everywhere on Earth,
in clouds
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overhead and rocks miles underground
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Even without documenting every microbe species, biologists can see
that microbial diversity is under threat. Soil may contain half
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microbial species, for instance, but as forests are cut down and
grasslands are converted to farm fields, much of that soil is
destroyed and some of its diversity of microbes is lost.

The Microbial Conservation Specialist Group
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as the newly formed group is known, plans to map hot spots for
microbial conservation around the world, including bare stretches of
rocky earth in Antarctica and the insides of animals and plants.
Samples will be collected, placed in vaults
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extinction, and studied.

The specialist group will also help make plans to save the ecosystems
where these microbes live. “The way forward is to preserve the
ecosystem so you can preserve the microorganisms, and the
microorganisms can in turn improve the ecosystem in a positive
loop,” said Raquel Peixoto, a microbiologist at King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and a chair of
the group alongside Dr. Gilbert.

Elinne Becket, a microbial ecologist at California State University,
San Marcos, who is not a member of the group, praised it for
establishing connections with people in different parts of the world
whose lives are affected by microbes.

“They have a strong short- and long-term plan to bring microbial
conservation to the forefront of conservation efforts,” Dr. Becket
said.

Conserving the microbes in coral reefs, for example, could greatly
benefit the people who live near them. Healthy coral reefs break ocean
waves, protecting coasts from flooding
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as nurseries for fish
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Coral reefs, which harbor one-third of all marine species
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are considered the rainforests of the ocean.

But the coral animals that build the reefs can’t survive on their
own. They depend on a coral microbiome, a collection of species that
help them break down their food and fight off pathogens.

Conserving microbes in coral reefs could benefit people who live near
them . Credit...Antonio Bronic/Reuters

Dr. Peixoto, who studies the coral microbiome, has seen it suffer as
the oceans become polluted and grow warmer from climate change.

“I can’t say they are going extinct, but I can clearly and
definitely say there is a decline,” Dr. Peixoto said. “You have
less beneficial microbes and more pathogens.”

Dr. Peixoto is running experiments on some of these beneficial
microbes, using them as probiotics for the reefs. Her preliminary
research suggests that they can restore coral health.

Preserving microbes in other habitats could also enable them to
provide us with their own services. Deserts and arid lands are topped
with fragile microbial crusts that pull carbon dioxide out of the air,
for example. The more microbes that can be saved, the more work they
can do to slow climate change. “Five hundred acres of that desert
will sequester a hell of a lot more carbon than one acre will,” Dr.
Gilbert said.

Dr. Peixoto also argues that saving microbial diversity could benefit
farmers. To spur the growth of their crops, farmers often blanket them
with nitrogen-rich fertilizers. But recent studies
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can inoculate their fields with soil bacteria that draw nitrogen from
the air and provide it to the crops, saving farmers billions of
dollars [[link removed]].

“Even economically, these are good things,” Dr. Peixoto said.

_CARL ZIMMER [[link removed]] covers news
about science for The Times and writes the Origins column
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* Science
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* biology
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* microbes
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* extinction
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* genetic diversity
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* genetics
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