Moran, M. A. and W. L. Miller. 2007. Resourceful heterotrophs make the most of light in the coastal ocean. Nature Reviews Microbiology 5:792-800.

The carbon cycle in the coastal ocean is greatly affected by how heterotrophic marine bacterioplankton obtain energy. Although previously thought to rely on organic carbon in seawater for all their energy needs, several recent discoveries suggest that pelagic bacteria can cheat on a strictly heterotrophic lifestyle by obtaining energy by unconventional mechanisms that are linked to the penetration of sunlight into surface waters. These newly-discovered mechanisms involve harvesting energy either directly from light, or indirectly from inorganic compounds that are formed when dissolved organic carbon absorbs light. In coastal systems, these mixed metabolic strategies have implications for how efficiently organic carbon is retained in the marine food web, and the exchange of climatically important gases between the ocean and atmosphere.