Pandoravirus sediments. Pandoraviruses, like other marine viruses, prey on plankton, which are organisms that live in the water column and form the basis of the food chain for other marine species. More study and research needs to be done in order to confirm the prevalence of Pandoraviruses in different environments. Currently, not much is known about their role in marine ecosystems. Pandoraviruses do have approximately 93% of their genes that are unidentifiable with any other microbes, suggesting they may belong to an as of yet undescribed "fourth domain" aside from Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryotes. Viruses as a whole are not popularly
Paleontology and botany, as it deals with both living and fossil organisms. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong. Instead of focusing on individual organisms, paleoecology examines the interactions between different organisms, such as their places in food chains, and the two-way interaction between organisms and their environment. One example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere. Together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular