Microbes, sponges, and worms — the side effects of pollution and heavy fishing — are adding insult to injury in Kenya’s imperiled reef systems, according to a recent study.

By some estimates, a third of the Earth’s organisms by mass live in our planet’s rocks and sediments, yet their lives and ecology are almost a complete mystery. Microbiologists have just revealed the first detailed data about a group of methane-exhaling microbes that live deep in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes.

An international study will help us to understand and predict the likely impact of ocean acidification on shellfish and other marine organisms living in seas from the tropics to the poles.