Microbial dark matter dominates Earth's environments

Uncultured microbes those whose characteristics have never been described because they have not yet been grown in a lab culture could be dominating nearly all the environments on Earth except for the human body, according to a new study published in systems. The research was led by Karen Lloyd, associate professor in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Department of Microbiology. Lloyd's study is the first time the population of uncultured microbes has been estimated.
Scientists have long been aware of this mass of uncultured microbes, also known by scientists as microbial dark matter. However, counting them one by one would be an impossible task and, up until now, researchers have not been able to even estimate how many of them there are.