Validating biogeographical theory for protists: Distribution pattern in Europe

原生生物(真核微生物)履行关键的生态功能，因为它们是水环境中占主导地位的初级生产者，同时也是细菌的主要消费者，因此是食物网的基础。此外，原生生物的多样性是巨大的，但它们的分布模式还没有得到很好的了解。虽然一些分类群显然是全球分布的，但另一些分类群显然是地方性的。原生生物的分布在多大程度上遵循观察到的高等生物体的模式，这是非常有争议的。对于已知的动植物生物地理模式对其他生物的概括性的怀疑是非常合适的！为此，欧洲冰川后生物地理学是进一步测试原生生物生物地理模式概括性的理想测试案例。高通量测序现在可以解开迷雾：扩增项目旨在追踪多样性模式。因此，我们建议根据冰期后大型生物的分布模式来研究欧洲淡水中的原生生物分布模式。我们将研究自然水生生态系统中原生生物多样性格局的变化，并基于来自250个欧洲湖泊的浮游生物样本，将这些变化与环境因素联系起来，这些湖泊包括来自西班牙、法国、意大利、瑞士、奥地利、罗马尼亚、匈牙利、捷克共和国、斯洛伐克、波兰、瑞典、挪威、希腊、克罗地亚和保加利亚的湖泊。空间分析将补充对中欧梯度内选定湖泊的季节分析，以便将季节模式与空间模式分开。该项目将基于大量的平行测序数据，分析该社区欧洲淡水湖的生物地理、系统地理和原生生物分子多样性的多样性。总而言之，该项目将测试微生物真核生物的一般生物学理论的有效性。

Protists (eukaryotic microbes) fulfill critical ecological functions as they are the dominant primary producers in aquatic environments and, at the same time, are the major consumers of bacteria and thus at the basis of food webs. Further, protist diversity is tremendous but their distribution pattern are not well understood. While some taxa obviously are globally distributed, some other taxa are clearly endemic. It is highly controversial to what extent protist distribution follows the pattern observed for higher organisms. Doubts about the generalizability of biogeographic patterns as known for animals and plants to other organisms are highly appropriate! To that end, the post-glacial biogeography of Europe is an ideal test case for further testing the generalizability of biogeographic patterns in protists. High throughput sequencing now allows for lifting the fog: amplicon projects aim at tracking down diversity patterns. Thus, we propose to investigate protist distribution pattern in European freshwaters in light of the post-glacial distribution patterns of macro-organisms. We will address variation in protist diversity pattern in natural aquatic ecosystems and relate these changes to environmental factors based on plankton samples from 250 European lakes including lakes from Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Croatia and Bulgaria. Spatial analysis will be complemented by seasonal analysis of selected lakes within a central European gradient in order to separate seasonal from spatial pattern. The project will analyze biogeography, phylogeopgraphy and diversity of protist molecular diversity in European freshwater lakes at the community based on massive parallel sequencing data. Taken together the project will test the validity of general biological theories for microbial eukaryotes.