A Resurgence in Field Research is Essential to Better Understand the Diversity, Ecology, and Evolution of Microbial Eukaryotes

Abstract

The discovery and characterization of protist communities from diverse environments are crucial for understanding the overall evolutionary history of life on earth. However, major questions about the diversity, ecology, and evolutionary history of protists remain unanswered, notably because data obtained from natural protist communities, especially of heterotrophic species, remain limited. In this review, we discuss the challenges associated with "field protistology", defined here as the exploration, characterization, and interpretation of microbial eukaryotic diversity within the context of natural environments or field experiments, and provide

Functional, Phylogenetic and Host-Geographic Signatures of Labyrinthula spp. Provide for Putative Species Delimitation and a Global-Scale View of Seagrass Wasting Disease

“…As with many microbes (Heger et al 2014), progress on understanding the ecology of seagrass wasting disease and Labyrinthula spp. is hindered by a paucity of basic information on species or strain-level genetic diversity, biogeographies, host ranges and specificity, and functional roles within this genus.…”

Quest of Soil Protists in a New Era

“…Furthermore, the limited public interest in and knowledge of these organisms may hinder research progress in several protistological disciplines (29). It may sound like a paradox but is true that culture-independent molecular analyses of protists in environments highlight the importance of culture-dependent studies of protists.…”

“…It may sound like a paradox but is true that culture-independent molecular analyses of protists in environments highlight the importance of culture-dependent studies of protists. Challenge of cultivating new and poorly-studied organisms and integration of such cultivation techniques with molecular and high-end microscopical techniques will provide enormous insights into fundamental questions in protistology (29). Indeed, even for Acanthamoeba , a very common group of soil protists including relatively many isolates so far, the molecular approach has clarified that the diversity is still far from the full understanding (21).…”

Worldwide sampling reveals low genetic variability in populations of the freshwater ciliate Paramecium biaurelia (P. aurelia species complex, Ciliophora, Protozoa)

“…As other free-living protists, ciliates play a key ecological role in various types of environment (Weisse 2006;Pawlowski et al 2012). However, in many cases determining the boundaries between eukaryotic microbial species is difficult due to the lack of a strict species definition (Boenigk et al 2012), scarce data on natural populations (Heger et al 2014) as well as existence of cryptic species (Nanney and McCoy 1976;Gentekaki and Lynn 2010;McManus et al 2010;Katz et al 2011).…”