There are about 1,000,000 bacteria per milliliter (1/5 of a teaspoon) of water in the coastal ocean. A lot of these bacteria degrade dead plant and algae material and turn them into useful nutrients which can allow further growth of plants and algae and animals. Without bacteria in the oceans to regenerate these nutrients, life there would be impossible!

Bacteria are small. Very small. The length of a bacterium is about 1/1,000,000 of a meter (one meter is 3.3 feet). One milliliter of water has the same volume as one cubic centimeter (cc) of water, which, being a cube, has three characteristic dimensions, or sides: length, width, and height. The length of each of those sides is 1 centimeter (cm, 1/100 of a meter, or about 3/8 of an inch). If the 1,000,000 bacteria in that one cubic centimeter of ocean water were spread out evenly, they would also make a cube. Each side of the cube would have 100 bacteria because 100 x 100 x 100 = 1,000,000. The distance between each bacterium on that side would then be 1 cm/100 bacterium = 0.01 cm between each bacterium.

Now let’s scale up the whole thing so that we can actually see it. Let’s make a bacterium the same length as an M&M (about 1 cm), which is an increase by a factor of 10,000. In that case the distance between each bacterium (M&M) would be 0.01 cm * 10,000 = 100 cm = 1 meter. So each bacterium would be about one meter from any other bacterium in any direction.

There are also a lot of viruses in ocean water that can infect the bacteria — about 10x more than there are bacteria, and each virus is about 1/100 as long as a bacterium. So scaled up, a virus would be about 1 cm/100 = 0.01 cm, which is a bit smaller than the length of a grain of table salt. Divided into all three directions, there would be about ~ 2.2 viruses (salt grains) on the line between each bacterium.

Remember that these bacteria and viruses are not there to hurt you! They act like nature’s recycling bin, taking in waste products and returning useful nutrients to the environment.

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