Deep molecular characterization of eukaryotic microorganisms´ diversity and community composition in forest soils and the canopy region across biomes using a multiple barcoding approach - micDiv

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Soil protists occupy key nodes in terrestrial food webs due to their high abundance, fast turnover and functional importance as microbial grazers. However, methodological drawbacks in both culturing and molecular methods still strongly limit the knowledge of protist diversity, so that large groups remain virtually unknown. Accordingly, the structure of natural protist communities and taxa-specific ecological functions are largely unknown. We will use advanced cultivation-independent high throughput sequencing methods using group-specific primers and reverse rRNA-transcriptomics for a comprehensive assessment of protist diversity across all ecological compartments from forest soils (litter layer, mineral soil) to the canopy region (bark, leaves, dead wood, branch forks, knotholes, epiphytes) in temperate and tropical biomes.