This project postulates that glycan diversity is a major unknown factor prohibiting degradation by microbial enzyme cascades and so enabling the formation of a stable carbon sink in the ocean. To investigate whether the chemical complexity of glycans can exceed that of the microbial enzymatic machineries required to degrade these carbohydrates we will synthesize diverse glycan structures in the lab and expose or challenge bacteria or enzymes with those. With these diversified structures we may find that glycan diversity and degradation by enzymes are inversely correlated and more diversity results in less degradation.