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

背景在过去的15年里，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、海洋碳和硫循环)生物过程的理解。研究藻类和原生动物的基础生物学不仅与生态学有关，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。我的主要科学兴趣是在不同水平上研究藻类基础生物学，以更好地了解光合作用真核生物进化背后的分子、细胞和生态过程。我的研究工作的一个主要领域是对微生物真核生物群体的调查，这对解开与第一批光合作用真核生物起源相关的基因组事件非常重要。我们研究的一些关键藻类和原生生物在自然界中是罕见的，寻找新的标本是重要的方法学挑战。这项建议旨在从三个不同的尺度调查微生物真核生物的多样性。第一个研究目标将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我的实验室最近开发的细胞检测和细胞采样方法，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之前和正在进行的环境调查中收集的藻类分离株进行详细的比较基因组研究。新奇和意义首先，对勘探程度较低的沿海微生物群落中真核生物多样性和丰度的研究将有助于确定海平面上升影响地区藻类和其他原生动物的生态作用。这些知识将帮助我们确定生态系统健康和稳定的生物学指标，并将增加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的基线，例如白藻，以调查光合作用真核生物的进化。最终，我们将有助于更好地了解研究较少的藻类。

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.