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Kutikova, L. A.

doi:10.1023/a:1023811929889

Cited by 17 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Micro-invertebrates, though very important to the soil biocenose (self-regulating ecological communities) and energy flux of a system, are still poorly understood in terms of their taxonomy and geographical distributions [1-4]. Like many microfaunal organisms, Rotifera and Tardigrada pose problems for taxonomists and evolutionary biologists due to the difficulties associated with isolation, identification and enumeration of organisms that do not preserve any discernable morphological characters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental DNA sequencing primers for eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers

et al. 2009

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BackgroundThe time it takes to isolate individuals from environmental samples and then extract DNA from each individual is one of the problems with generating molecular data from meiofauna such as eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers. The lack of consistent morphological information and the extreme abundance of these classes makes morphological identification of rare, or even common cryptic taxa a large and unwieldy task. This limits the ability to perform large-scale surveys of the diversity of these organisms.Here we demonstrate a culture-independent molecular survey approach that enables the generation of large amounts of eutardigrade and bdelloid rotifer sequence data directly from soil. Our PCR primers, specific to the 18s small-subunit rRNA gene, were developed for both eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers.ResultsThe developed primers successfully amplified DNA of their target organism from various soil DNA extracts. This was confirmed by both the BLAST similarity searches and phylogenetic analyses. Tardigrades showed much better phylogenetic resolution than bdelloids. Both groups of organisms exhibited varying levels of endemism.ConclusionThe development of clade-specific primers for characterizing eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers from environmental samples should greatly increase our ability to characterize the composition of these taxa in environmental samples. Environmental sequencing as shown here differs from other molecular survey methods in that there is no need to pre-isolate the organisms of interest from soil in order to amplify their DNA. The DNA sequences obtained from methods that do not require culturing can be identified post-hoc and placed phylogenetically as additional closely related sequences are obtained from morphologically identified conspecifics. Our non-cultured environmental sequence based approach will be able to provide a rapid and large-scale screening of the presence, absence and diversity of Bdelloidea and Eutardigrada in a variety of soils.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental DNA sequencing primers for eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers

et al. 2009

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“…The feeding behaviour and morphology of the feeding apparatus indicate that cryoconite species consume mostly algae, bacteria and detritus (Devetter, 2009;Iakovenko et al, 2015;Zawierucha et al, 2016). However, their diet in various environments differs interspecifically (De Smet and Van Rompu, 1994;Guidetti et al, 2012;Guil and Sanchez-Moreno, 2013;Hallas and Yeates, 1972;Kutikova, 2003;Mialet et al, 2013;Wallace and Snell, 2010;Zawierucha et al, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotopic composition of top consumers in Arctic cryoconite holes: revealing different position in supraglacial trophic network

Jaromerska¹,

Trubač²,

Zawierucha³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Cryoconite holes are ecosystems on the glacier surface characterized by dynamic nature and truncated food webs. It is acknowledged that cryoconite holes play an important role being biodiversity hot-spots and factories for organic matter on glaciers. The most common cryoconite apex consumers are the cosmopolitan invertebrates – tardigrades and rotifers. Several studies have highlighted the relevance of cryoconite tardigrades and rotifers to cryoconite holes’ ecosystem functioning. However, due to the dominant occurrence of prokaryotes on glaciers, these consumers are usually out of the major scope of most studies aiming at biological processes on glaciers. The aim of this study is to present data about isotopic composition of tardigrades, rotifers and cryoconite from three High Arctic glaciers in Svalbard and discuss their potential trophic relations. We found that tardigrades have lower δ15N values than rotifers, which indicates different food requirements of both consumers. The δ13C values revealed similarities among the consumers from the same glaciers and differences between consumers and cryoconite among glaciers. The resulted δ13C values point to similar carbon requirement of consumers within a glacier but differences in carbon input between glaciers. The results comprise the first observation of cryoconite holes’ consumers through stable isotopic analyses using an improved method of cryoconite sample processing and pave the way for further studies of the supraglacial trophic network.

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