Marine phytoplankton play essential roles in global primary production and biogeochemical cycles. Yet, the evolutionary genetic underpinnings of phytoplankton adaptation to complex marine and coastal environments, where many environmental variables fluctuate and interact, remain unclear. We combined population genomics with experimental transcriptomics to investigate the genomic basis underlying a natural evolutionary experime...

Diatoms can survive long periods in dark, anoxic sediments by forming resting spores or resting cells. These have been considered dormant until recently when resting cells of Skeletonema marinoi were shown to assimilate nitrate and ammonium from the ambient environment in dark, anoxic conditions. Here, we show that resting cells of S. marinoi can also perform dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA), in dark, anoxic...