Abstract：
Marine phytoplankton play crucial roles in the Earth\'s ecological, chemical, and geological processes. They are responsible for about half of global primary production and drive the ocean biological carbon pump. Understanding how plankton species may adapt to the Earth\'s rapidly changing environments is evidently an urgent priority. This problem requires evolutionary genetic approaches as evolution occurs at the level of allele frequency change within populations driven by genetic drift and natural selection (microevolution). Plankters such as the coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa huxleyi and the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus \'marinus\' are among Earth\'s most abundant organisms. In this opinion paper we discuss how evolution in astronomically large populations of superabundant microbes (SAMs) may act fundamentally differently than it does in the populations of more modest size found in well-studied organisms. This offers exciting opportunities to study evolution in the conditions that have yet to be explored and also leads to unique challenges. Exploring these opportunities and challenges is the goal of this article.
摘要：
海洋浮游植物在地球生态中起着至关重要的作用,化学,和地质过程。它们约占全球初级生产的一半，并驱动海洋生物碳泵。了解浮游生物物种如何适应地球快速变化的环境显然是当务之急。这个问题需要进化遗传方法，因为进化发生在由遗传漂移和自然选择（微进化）驱动的种群内等位基因频率变化的水平上。浮游生物，例如球藻嗜好细胞Gephyrocapsahuxleyi和蓝细菌Prochloroccus\'marinus\'是地球上最丰富的生物。在这篇观点论文中，我们讨论了在天文上大量的超量微生物（SAM）中的进化与在经过充分研究的生物体中发现的中等大小的种群中的进化如何根本不同。这为在尚未探索的条件下研究进化提供了令人兴奋的机会，也带来了独特的挑战。探索这些机遇和挑战是本文的目标。
