Exploratory Research on Marine Micro-Eukaryote Community Structure Using ion-Pair Reversed Phase HPLC

底栖和远洋生态系统的食物网动态在很大程度上是由原核生物和微真核生物群落驱动的。微真核生物的系统发育多样性范围从原生生物到各种无脊椎动物的成虫和幼虫阶段。由于它们无法在培养基中生长或由于它们难以区分的特征，许多这些物种难以识别。分子技术在揭示这些群落的复杂性和活动方面发挥了重要作用。本研究的目的是探索利用离子配对反相（IP-RP） UPLC进行核酸片段分析，这是一种成功应用于生物医学研究的系统。如果这项技术适用于海洋研究，确定和量化种群所需的时间将从几天减少到几分钟。IP-RP HPLC将通过四个不同的研究项目进行测试：海洋栖息地中未培养真菌种群的存在；非洲沙尘中动植物致病菌和真菌的分布；佛罗里达湾食物网中桡足类幼虫的群落结构，以及加勒比海珊瑚和珊瑚礁鱼类的遗传扩散。

Food web dynamics of benthic and pelagic ecosystems are driven, in large part, by communities of prokaryotes and micro-eukaryotes. The phylogenetic diversity of the micro-eukaryotes range from protists to various adult and larval stages of invertebrates. Many of these species are difficult to identify due to their inability to grow in culture media or due to their indistinguishable characteristics. Molecular techniques have been instrumental in unraveling the complexities and activities of these communities. The purpose of this research is to explore the use of ion-paired reversed phase (IP-RP) UPLC for nucleic acid fragment analysis, which is a system that is successfully used in biomedical research. If this technique is adaptable to marine research, the time required to identify and quantify populations will be reduced from days to minutes. IP-RP HPLC will be tested with four diverse research programs: presence of uncultured fungal populations in marine habitats; distribution of plant and animal pathogenic bacteria and fungi in African dust; community structure of copepod larvae in the Florida Bay food web, and genetic dispersal of Caribbean corals and reef fishes.