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

背景 * 在过去的十五年中，使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已经改变了我们对微观（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）规模。研究藻类和原生生物的基础生物学不仅与生态学观点相关，而且对于理解真核生物谱系惊人多样性的起源和进化也是至关重要的。 * 建议 * 我的主要科学兴趣是在不同层次上研究藻类基础生物学，以更好地了解光合真核生物进化的分子，细胞和生态过程。我的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学挑战。该建议旨在调查微生物真核生物多样性在三个不同的尺度。第一个研究目标将探讨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的总体藻类和原生生物多样性和丰度。第二个研究目标是改进和使用细胞检测和细胞取样方法，最近在我的实验室开发，以识别和分离稀有的藻类标本的进化兴趣。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研究。新奇和重要性 * 首先，在未充分开发的沿海微生物群落中研究真核生物多样性和丰度将有助于确定受海平面上升影响的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战略的能力。其次，我们的真核生物多样性的调查将促进新的采样和鉴定方法的设计，以分离相关的进化基因组学研究的微生物标本。特别是，我们的藻类多样性调查将产生数据，以启动主要利益的稀有群体，如蓝绿藻的分布和丰度的基线，以调查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。

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.