Environmental diversity and genomics studies of algal groups important to understand the origin and evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes

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Background***During the last fifteen years, investigations of microbial eukaryote (algae and other protists) diversity and abundance using high-throughput approaches have modified our understanding of biological processes at both micro (e.g., comparative genomics) and macro (e.g., primary production, carbon and sulfur cycling in oceans) scales. Studying the basic biology of algae and protists is not only relevant for the ecological perspective, but also is fundamental to understand the origin and evolution of the astonishing diversity of the eukaryote lineage. ***Proposal ***My central scientific interest is the study of algal basic biology at different levels to better understand molecular, cellular and ecological processes underlying the evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. A main area of my research work is the investigation of microbial eukaryote groups important to untangle genomic events associated to the origin of the first photosynthetic eukaryotes. Some of the key algal and protist groups we study are rare in nature and finding new specimens represents important methodological challenges. This proposal aims to investigate microbial eukaryote diversity at three different scales. The first research objective will explore overall algal and protist diversity and abundance in microbial communities from coastal areas of Atlantic Canada affected by the progressive increase of the sea level. The second research objective is designed to improve and use cell-detection and cell-sampling approaches, developed recently in my laboratory, to identify and isolate rare algal specimens of evolutionary interest. The third objective aims to carry out detailed comparative genomic investigations of algal isolates collected during our previous and ongoing environmental surveys.***Novelty and significance***First, the study of eukaryote diversity and abundance in poorly explored coastal microbial communities will contribute to identify the ecological roles of algae and other protists in areas affected by increasing sea levels. This knowledge will help us identify biological indicators of ecosystem health and stability, and will increase our predictive capabilities about future changes and capacity to design effective conservation strategies. Second, our survey of eukaryote diversity will facilitate the design of novel sampling and identification methods to isolate microbial specimens relevant for evolutionary genomics investigations. Particularly, our algal diversity surveys will generate data to initiate a baseline of the distribution and abundance of rare groups of major interest, such glaucophyte algae, to investigate the evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. Ultimately, we will contribute to have a better understanding of poorly studied algal groups.