Investigating the evolutionary relationships of Arcellinida by single-cell phylogenomics of Phryganella (Arcellinida, Amoebozoa).

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Single cell transcriptomics is the new cutting edge technique to establish sound protist phylogenies. The wealth of data thus generated enables a direct link to the functional diversity of microbes. In Amoebozoa, morphologically diverse shelled amoebae were unified under the order Arcellinida based on morphology and a patchwork of single-gene phylogenetic analyses. The characteristic and informative morphological characters present in the shell of the Arcellinida have been historically useful in taxonomy and ecology, nowadays they are often used as bioindicators in ecological and paleoecological studies. However, multigene approaches reveal severe inconsistencies in the traditional morphology-based classification and have recently shown the Arcellinida to be polyphyletic, challenging any ecological data interpretation based on traditional, morphology-based classification. To further investigate this, we obtained preliminary results from SSU rDNA sequences of five cultured strains from three morphospecies of the genus Phryganella, indicating that the family Phryganellidae groups at the basis of the Arcellinida. We came to the conclusion that multigene approaches are needed to clarify the phylogenetic position of Phryganella within the Amoebozoa. Single cell transcriptomes will thus lead to a thorough molecular characterization of the three cultured morphospecies, give further insight in the evolution of arcellinid testate amoebae and learning this method will facilitate personal career development and build the fundament for future proposals and research of myself and colleagues.