The theme of the sixth Gordon Conference in marine microbes is "Small microbes, big data". The Conference will present and discuss cutting-edge research on marine microbiology with a focus on the challenges and opportunities of integrating and synthesizing diverse datastreams to elucidate the role of marine microorganisms in driving global biogeochemical cycles. The Conference will feature a wide range of topics relevant to the broad diversity of marine microbes (Bacteria, Archaea, phytoplankton, protists, viruses) such as single cell techniques, organism specific and community wide "omics" approaches, ocean observing and time series, individual based and global scale modeling, microbial interactions, population biology, evolution, and responses to a changing environment on short and long time scales. The Conference will bring together the international community of marine microbiologists. It will feature presentations of unpublished work by investigators at the forefront of the field, and will provide opportunities for junior scientists and graduate students to present their work in poster format and exchange ideas with leaders in the field. The collegial atmosphere of this Conference, with extensive discussion sessions as well as opportunities for informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings, provides an ideal setting for scientists from different disciplines to exchange ideas, brainstorm and discuss cross-disciplinary collaborations.