Cited by 4,871Microbial Community Ecology and PhysiologySoil Carbon and Nitrogen DynamicsMarine Plankton and Biogeochemistry

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Prokaryotes: The unseen majority

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Whitman, William B., Coleman, David C., Wiebe, William J.·1998·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI 10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578PMC PMC33863

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Abstract

The number of prokaryotes and the total amount of their cellular carbon on earth are estimated to be 4–6 × 10 30 cells and 350–550 Pg of C (1 Pg = 10 15 g), respectively. Thus, the total amount of prokaryotic carbon is 60–100% of the estimated total carbon in plants, and inclusion of prokaryotic carbon in global models will almost double estimates of the amount of carbon stored in living organisms. In addition, the earth’s prokaryotes contain 85–130 Pg of N and 9–14 Pg of P, or about 10-fold more of these nutrients than do plants, and represent the largest pool of these nutrients in living organisms. Most of the earth’s prokaryotes occur in the open ocean, in soil, and in oceanic and terrestrial subsurfaces, where the numbers of cells are 1.2 × 10 29 , 2.6 × 10 29 , 3.5 × 10 30 , and 0.25–2.5 × 10 30 , respectively. The numbers of heterotrophic prokaryotes in the upper 200 m of the open ocean, the ocean below 200 m, and soil are consistent with average turnover times of 6–25 days, 0.8 yr, and 2.5 yr, respectively. Although subject to a great deal of uncertainty, the estimate for the average turnover time of prokaryotes in the subsurface is on the order of 1–2 × 10 3 yr. The cellular production rate for all prokaryotes on earth is estimated at 1.7 × 10 30 cells/yr and is highest in the open ocean. The large population size and rapid growth of prokaryotes provides an enormous capacity for genetic diversity.

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“oceans (Whitman et al. 1998; Worden et al. 2004) but”
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On the Biological Success of Viruses
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“Pathways and exchanges between the ocean and the deep subseafloor have generated the largest reservoir of prokaryotic life on Earth (e.g., Whitman et al., 1998; Amend and Teske, 2005; Edwards et al., 2012; Jungbluth et al., 2016; Hoshino et al., 2017).”
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Venturing into new realms? Microorganisms in space
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Applications of Microbial Processes in Geotechnical Engineering
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“However, a typical paradigm that only 1% of bacteria are cultivable (Whitman et al. 1998) suggests that the vast majority of hosts in the natural environment are unculturable, let alone corresponding phages.”
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Modeling hydrodynamic self-propulsion with Stokesian Dynamics. Or teaching Stokesian Dynamics to swim
Swan, J. W., Brady, J. F., Moore, R. S., & 174, C. (2011) · Physics of Fluids · doi:10.1063/1.3594790 · Cited by 81
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“[1] Microorganisms constitute the majority of all living matter on the Earth,[2] and as such, form a foundational component of the entirety of Earth’s environment along with the lithosphere, soils, the oceans and the atmosphere.”
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Microbial Diversity of Cave Ecosystems
Engel, A. S. (2010) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-90-481-9204-5_10 · Cited by 86
The complete genome sequence for putative H 2 ‐ and S ‐oxidizer C andidatus Sulfuricurvum sp., assembled de novo from an aquifer‐derived metagenome
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“The deep marine biosphere is thought to host a large component of the world’s microbial population, yet little is known about these subsurface cells (Whitman et al., 1998).”
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Insights from Genomics into Bacterial Pathogen Populations
Wilson, D. J. (2012) · PLoS Pathogens · doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1002874 · Cited by 86
“Bacterial cells account for most of the earth’s biomass [1], and the 100 trillion microbial residents of the human body outnumber human cells 10 to 1 [2].”
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Microbial co-occurrence patterns in deep Precambrian bedrock fracture fluids
Purkamo, L., Bomberg, M., Kietäväinen, R., Salavirta, H., Nyyssönen, M., Nuppunen-Puputti, M., Ahonen, L., Kukkonen, I., & Itävaara, M. (2016) · Biogeosciences · doi:10.5194/bg-13-3091-2016 · Cited by 90
“The microbial communities in deep terrestrial subsurface biosphere contribute significantly to the overall biomass on Earth (Whitman et al., 1998; McMahon and Parnell, 2014).”
Immunity in Protochordates: The Tunicate Perspective
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“The marine habitat contains 10 5 –10 6 microbes/ml in the water column and much more in the sediments (5); the amount of viruses is 10 times higher (6).”
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Mod, H. K., Buri, A., Yashiro, E., Guex, N., Malard, L. A., Pinto‐Figueroa, E., Pagni, M., Niculita‐Hirzel, H., van der Meer, J. R., & Guisan, A. (2021) · The ISME Journal · doi:10.1038/s41396-021-00947-5 · Cited by 85
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“Interactions between bacteria and their natural parasites, bacteriophages (phage), have global-scale effects (42).”
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How much of protein sequence space has been explored by life on Earth?
Dryden, D. T. F., Thomson, A. R., & White, J. H. (2008) · Journal of The Royal Society Interface · doi:10.1098/rsif.2008.0085 · Cited by 85
H2-Metabolizing Prokaryotes
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Emerging strategies and integrated systems microbiology technologies for biodiscovery of marine bioactive compounds
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Microorganisms and Biotic Interactions
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“In healthy adult men, densities are 10 6-7 bacteria per cm 2 of skin (Roth and James 1988) , 10 11-12 bacteria per ml in the colon (Whitman et al.”
Background
Genomic Makeup of the Marine Flavobacterium Nonlabens (Donghaeana) dokdonensis and Identification of a Novel Class of Rhodopsins
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Biosynthesis of rhamnolipid by a Marinobacter species expands the paradigm of biosurfactant synthesis to a new genus of the marine microflora
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Allophycocyanin Trimer Stability and Functionality Are Primarily Due to Polar Enhanced Hydrophobicity of the Phycocyanobilin Binding Pocket
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Who is out there? Microbial Aspects of Biodiversity
Amann, R. (2000) · Systematic and Applied Microbiology · doi:10.1016/s0723-2020(00)80039-9 · Cited by 84
Productivity-diversity relationships from chemolithoautotrophically based sulfidic karst systems
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From natural product to marketed drug: the tiacumicin odyssey
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Pressure coring, logging and subsampling with the HYACINTH system
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“It is, however, hard to understand how in a soil community where there may be 10(9) bacterial cells per gram of soil [59], the ‘bottleneck’ of selecting several grams of soil for recolonization could produce what appear to be founder effects.”
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Alternative oxidase and plastoquinol terminal oxidase in marine prokaryotes of the Sargasso Sea
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“The Sargasso Sea is a very nutrient-depleted environ- ment, which prokaryotes are known to dominate (Whitman et al., 1998; Venter et al., 2004).”
BackgroundInfluential
Use of an ATP assay to determine viable microbial biomass in Fennoscandian Shield groundwater from depths of 3–1000 m
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“Circumstantial evidence suggests that this subsurface microbial biomass is enormous and that microbes may exist below the surface of the Earth to an extent greater than in other components of the biosphere (Gold 1992; Whitman et al. 1998).”
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Authors: Whitman, W. B., Coleman, D. C., & Wiebe, W. J.
Affiliations: University of Georgia (US)
ORCID: Whitman, William B.
Coleman, David C.
Venue: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Published: 1998-06-09
Volume: 95
Issue: 12
Pages: 6578-6583
ISSN: 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
1091-6490
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578
PMC: PMC33863
OpenAlex: W2118001436
Semantic Scholar: 321e4c5e6031364c39db3cfdb151dcc2deaac1ba
Cited by: 4,871
References: 92
Citations by year: 2026: 86 · 2025: 134 · 2024: 159 · 2023: 220 · 2022: 190 · 2021: 252 · 2020: 223 · 2019: 238 · 2018: 273 · 2017: 251 · 2016: 281 · 2015: 282 · 2014: 311 · 2013: 252 · 2012: 238
FWCI: 6.26
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
europepmc.org
Locations: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics: Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Marine Plankton and Biogeochemistry
Keywords: prokaryotes, nitrogen, phosphorus, open ocean, soil, subsurface environments, genetic diversity
MeSH terms: Prokaryotic Cells

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Prokaryotes: The unseen majority

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