Plankton communities: How unicellular organisms make decisions and respond to stress

Marine microalgae are ubiquitous in the ocean plankton and biofilms. We aim to elucidate how chemical signals and gradients affect plankton communities and how large species assemblages as well as microscopically small clusters are controlled by chemical signaling. We showed that plankton microalgae as well as bacteria produce a previously unknown sulfur compound and thus might fundamentally impact microbial interactions and the global sulfur cycle.