sentence: Microbes are responsible for many biochemical cycles and are crucial to the whole biosphere.
sentences_before: The tree of life shows the diversity of microbes. Single-celled organisms represent the vast majority of the biosphere's diversity. This is surprising to some, given our familiarity with the larger metazoan world.
sentences_after: Woese's efforts to clarify the evolution and diversity of microbes was an invaluable service to ecology, conservation and evolutionary biology.
concept_name: microbe
headings: Carl Woese Work and discoveries
categories: 1928 births 2012 deaths Alumni of Yale University American biologists Deaths from pancreatic cancer Foreign Members of the Royal Society Microbiologists Scientists from New York People from Syracuse, New York