RUI: Biodiversity of testate (shelled) amoebae in New England bogs and fens

我们生活在一个微生物星球上：微生物已经在地球上生活了30多亿年，从数量、生物量和生物多样性来看，它们构成了地球上大部分生命。我们对微生物的生物多样性仍然知之甚少，尽管扩大我们的知识有可能促进与生态系统健康有关的国家利益。这个项目的重点是一组微生物，即有壳的变形虫，它们是新英格兰沼泽和沼泽中大量的顶级捕食者。无遗嘱变形虫有丰富的分类历史，基于其测试（壳）的形状和组成；然而，这些特征已被证明是与它们的识别有关的误导，因为有许多隐种。因此，本研究项目依靠分子工具来探索其跨时空的生物多样性。鉴于遗嘱变形虫是气候变化的标志，并且在沼泽和沼泽等受威胁的湿地栖息地中大量存在，这些研究很重要。除了科学发现之外，该研究项目还将培养一组本科女性和一名微生物生物多样性博士后。遗存变形虫在古生态和现代研究中都被用作生物指示物，一些类群被认为是泥鳅为主生境的顶级捕食者。这个研究项目将阐明新英格兰沼泽和沼泽中不同季节的变形虫的多样性。形态学和系统发育物种的比较，最初是基于两个分子标记，然后通过转录组分析进行多位点描绘，将有助于探索这一进化支的生物多样性。这项工作将通过评估小尺度（本地）和大尺度（新英格兰）的变化来探索驱动遗嘱变形虫分布的生态因素。社区成员之间的模式也将使用基因组中目标区域的高通量测序来表征，这可以检测到罕见的社区成员。这项研究将产生遗骨变形虫的图像、基因序列数据、比对、系统发育和转录组（即表达的基因），这些都来自一个研究较少的真核生物分支，所有这些都将提供给社区。参与该项目的学生和博士后将在微生物多样性、显微镜和高通量测序数据分析方面发展专业知识。招募参与者的目的是扩大代表性不足的少数民族的参与。

We live on a microbial planet: microbes have inhabited the Earth for more than 3 billion years and comprise most of life on Earth in terms of number, biomass and biodiversity. We still know very little about the biodiversity of microbes, though extending our knowledge has the potential to advance the national interest in relation to ecosystem health. This project focuses on one group of microbes, namely the testate (shelled) amoebae, which are abundant and top predators in New England bogs and fens. Testate amoebae have a rich history of classification based on the shape and composition of their tests (shells); yet these traits have been shown to be misleading in relation to their identification, because there are many cryptic species. Hence, this research project relies on molecular tools to explore their biodiversity across time and space. Such studies are important given that testate amoebae serve as markers for changing climates and are abundant in threatened wetland habitats like bogs and fens. Beyond scientific discovery, this research project will train a group of undergraduate women plus a postdoctoral fellow on the biodiversity of microorganisms. Testate amoebae have been used as bioindicators in both paleoecological and contemporary studies, and some taxa are argued to be top predators in Sphagnum dominated habitats. This research project will illuminate the diversity of testate amoebae from bogs and fens within New England and across seasons. Comparison of morphological and phylogenetic species, defined initially based on two molecular markers and then by multilocus delineation through transcriptome analyses, will allow exploration of the biodiversity of this clade. The work will probe the ecological factors that drive the distribution of testate amoebae by assessing fine (local) and larger (New England) scale variation. Patterns among community members will also be characterized using high-throughput sequencing of target regions in the genome, which allows detection of rare community members. This research will generate images of testate amoebae, gene sequence data, alignments, phylogenies, and transcriptomes (i.e. expressed genes) from a poorly studied clade of eukaryotes, all of which will be made available to the community. Students and postdoctoral fellows working on this project will develop expertise in microbial diversity, microscopy, and analyses of high throughput sequencing data. Participant recruitment will aim to broaden participation from underrepresented minorities.