Extracellular chemical cues constitute much of the language of life among marine organisms from microbes to mammals. These chemical cues shape foraging and feeding strategies, symbiotic interactions, selection of mates and habitats, and the transfer of energy and nutrient...

The marine labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) pool is a dynamic reservoir of thousands of molecules. After excretion or release by phytoplankton and other microbes, metabolites are rapidly consumed, resulting in very low standing concentrations (picomolar to low nanomolar). To date, marine phy...