Picobiliphyta: an Algal group new to Science

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Marine and freshwater phytoplankton play pivotal roles in many biogeochemical processes that sustain the biosphere, and provide a variety of goods and services that are essential to mankind¿s existence, including food production, assimilation of waste and regulation of the climate. Water covers 70% of the Earth¿s surface and virtually all major ocean and seas are dominated numerically by microscopic protists and phototrophic prokaryotes. Each time that the biodiversity of these microscopic protists and prokaryotes has been investigated by molecular techniques, it has been found that we know approximately 10% of the biodiversity in the smallest size fractions. This project will attempt to recover the morphology of a new algal class discovered by environmental sequencing by using state of the art molecular probes coupled to fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Attempts will be made to bring the cells into culture, and investigate the ultrastructure and phylogenetic history of the new class. Environmental clone libraries enriched in their sequences from taxon-specific primers and microarrays will map the distribution in time and space of these organisms from the German Bight where they were first discovered.