Species: Micromonas commoda

Description

Micromonas is a eukaryotic, photosynthetic microorganism found throughout marine ecosystems - from polar waters to the tropics. It is classified as a member of the picophytoplankton because of its small size ( less than 2 micrometer in diameter). Currently, picophytoplankton are known to be important to primary production, but the individual contributions of each of the different groups, or species (with Micromonas being one of those), aren't well known. To date, Micromonas strains have been described as belonging to a single species. It is likely that the designation Micromonas commoda harbors several different (cryptic) species (Slapeta et al. 2006, Worden 2006).