text: The deep ocean harbors more than 98% of the dissolved inorganic carbon pool, along with a rapid sedimentation rate that results in low particulate organic carbon inputs. It is yet to be resolved what effect microbes have on the global carbon cycle. Studies show that microbes in the deep ocean are not dormant, but are metabolically active and must be participating in nutrient cycling by not only heterotrophs but by autotrophs as well. There is a mismatch from the microbial carbon demand in the deep ocean and the carbon export from the surface ocean. Dissolved inorganic carbon fixation is on similar orders of magnitude as heterotrophic microbes in the surface ocean. Model-based data reveal that dissolved inorganic carbon fixation ranges from 1 mmol C m d to 2.5 mmol C m d.