Collaborative Research: Testing hypotheses about diversity, gene flow, and effective population size in marine planktonic ciliates

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The decoupling of molecular and classical approaches to environmental microbiology has not been fruitful and it represents one of the most important challenges for the field in the coming years. Classical approaches center on the centuries-old tradition of describing individual species via meticulous observation and analysis to generate monographs, such as is done for plants and animals. Unfortunately, the rush to new molecular techniques has sometimes ignored this tradition, with claims about new lineages never seen before and reports of staggering diversity of microbial eukaryotes based on environmental DNA samples not backed up by even the most elementary microscopic observations. In the face of this disconnect between the traditional and the molecular, this project is a marriage of the two approaches in the study of marine ciliate diversity and gene flow. Preliminary data show that in some clades of planktonic ciliates (Strombidiidae) there is indeed a high level of molecular diversity underlying a relatively small number of morphospecies. In other clades (some choreotrichs), the opposite appears to be true, with morphological heterogeneity underlain by apparently clonal lines, based on molecular data. Currently, we do not understand what sustains diversity in some clades; nor do we know why other clades show low diversity. This problem is amenable to both experimental and observational approaches. This project will follow a two-pronged approach, combining molecular (clone libraries, DGGE, FISH) and traditional (light microscopy) techniques to address three broad questions: 1). What are the most important physical and biological factors that affect distribution and diversity of planktonic marine ciliates? 2). What is the effective population size for marine ciliate populations, and how does this compare to census population sizes? 3). How well do traditional morphological descriptions of ciliate species fare when compared with molecular characterizations? Using a combination of molecular and microscopy methods, the investigators will address these questions in coastal planktonic ciliates. Analyses of the resulting data will yield insights into the nature of ciliate species and patterns of gene flow within the North Atlantic.The broader impacts of this proposal include training and outreach to K-12 educators. The PIs have a past record that demonstrates success in training both undergraduate and graduate students. Both PIs have proven track records in mentoring students from traditionally underrepresented groups, and they will continue to aim recruitment activities towards broadening diversity of participants in this project. The PIs will also participate in teacher training through a partnership with Project Oceanology, a private non-profit marine education organization located at UConn. Each summer of the project they will host two K-12 teachers who will receive tuition scholarships to earn graduate credit for research experiences in ciliate biology and ecology under the supervision of the PIs. Finally, resulting data from this project will be made available through the internet as well as in publications.