Seagrass meadows around the world absorb carbon dioxide at a prodigious rate. Now researchers have discovered that they’re converting and storing the carbon in marine sediments in a surprising form – as ordinary table sugar. Nicole Dubilier, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, led a team that detected the sugar-rich sediments. They also found the seagrass also produced antimicrobials that prevent the sugar being consumed by ‘sweet-toothed’ microorganisms, and its carbon safely locked away. Her research was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.