This also set the foundations for the carbon cycle without which life couldn’t exist – the absorption of carbon dioxide by plants, the consumption of plants by animals, the exhalation of carbon dioxide by animals.Īnother reason microbes are so amazing is their ability to adapt to just about any environment. The microbes then ate this sugar, releasing oxygen as they did so and creating our atmosphere in the process Microbes were the first living things to use photosynthesis, a process whereby an organism uses energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar. Microbes also played a vital role in creating Earth’s atmosphere. Microbes are always busy breaking down various molecules all around us, which is how soil gets enriched and nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen complete their environmental cycles. Just how tiny are they? Well, microbes are so small that a million of them could fit on the head of a pin.īut this doesn’t mean their role is insignificant. The term “microbes” actually refers to a wide array of tiny single-cell organisms, such as various species of bacteria and fungi. But even then they were hard at work, shaping the planet we see before us. That’s a long time ago, and for a while they were the only living things around. Microbes, on the other hand, have been around since March.

Microbes have been around for so long that it’s hard to comprehend, so let’s look at it another way: If the Earth’s 4.5 billion years of existence were one calendar year, humans would have shown up in the last 30 minutes of December 31st, five days after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Ed yong i contain multitudes review