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

在过去的15年中，利用高通量方法对微生物真核生物（藻类和其他原生生物）多样性和丰度的研究改变了我们对微观（例如，比较基因组学）和宏观（例如，初级生产，海洋中的碳和硫循环）尺度生物过程的理解。研究藻类和原生生物的基础生物学不仅与生态学的观点有关，而且对了解真核生物谱系的惊人多样性的起源和进化至关重要。我的主要科学兴趣是研究不同水平的藻类基础生物学，以更好地理解光合真核生物进化背后的分子、细胞和生态过程。我研究工作的一个主要领域是微生物真核生物群体的调查，这对解开与第一个光合真核生物起源相关的基因组事件很重要。我们研究的一些关键的藻类和原生生物群体在自然界中是罕见的，寻找新的标本代表了重要的方法挑战。本研究旨在研究微生物真核生物在三种不同尺度下的多样性。第一个研究目标是探索受海平面逐渐上升影响的加拿大大西洋沿岸地区微生物群落中藻类和原生生物的总体多样性和丰度。第二个研究目标是改进和使用最近在我的实验室开发的细胞检测和细胞取样方法，以识别和分离具有进化意义的稀有藻类标本。第三个目标是对我们以前和正在进行的环境调查中收集的藻类分离物进行详细的比较基因组调查。首先，对未开发的沿海微生物群落真核生物多样性和丰度的研究将有助于确定受海平面上升影响地区藻类和其他原生生物的生态作用。这些知识将帮助我们确定生态系统健康和稳定的生物指标，并将提高我们对未来变化的预测能力和设计有效保护策略的能力。其次，我们对真核生物多样性的调查将有助于设计新的采样和鉴定方法，以分离与进化基因组学研究相关的微生物标本。特别是，我们的藻类多样性调查将产生数据，以启动主要感兴趣的稀有类群的分布和丰度基线，例如蓝藻，以研究光合真核生物的进化。最终，我们将有助于更好地了解研究不足的藻类群体。

BackgroundDuring 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 significanceFirst, 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.