Project description
The unknown biology of the most abundant marine microbial eukaryotes
Which are the most abundant microbial eukaryote species in the world’s sunlit oceans, and what roles do they play in global ecology? The EU-funded GROWCEAN project will isolate abundant, unknown marine microbial eukaryotes and transform them into new model organisms to study ocean ecology and evolution. First, it will characterise their cell biology, behaviour, life history and interspecies interactions with time-lapse and fluorescence microscopy. Next, it will use single-cell techniques to sequence their genomes/transcriptomes to understand their metabolic potential. Finally, it will interrogate global sequence datasets to build hypotheses about their ecological characteristics, and then test these hypotheses in lab cultures, with the goal of revealing how these globally abundant protists influence oceanic ecosystems.
Objective
Which are the most abundant microbial eukaryotic species in the world’s sunlit oceans, and what roles do they play in global marine ecology? At present, the answers to both of these questions remain largely unknown. Recently, the Tara Oceans expedition conducted a global ribosomal barcode survey of the surface oceans, revealing that, of roughly 500,000 total Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), only 89, which were present in every station sampled by Tara, represent half of the total global OTU abundance. Yet, of these 89 OTUs, 81 do not match any known species.
The goal of this project is to characterize the biology, interspecies interactions, and ecosystem relevance of these 81 highly abundant, ubiquitous unknown microbial eukaryotes. We propose three research objectives. First, using a novel isolation approach, we will establish robust laboratory cultures and sequence their transcriptomes to produce gene catalogs. Second, we will apply time-lapse light and fluorescence microscopy to understand their life history and behavior and to build hypotheses about their individual and community metabolic potential. Third, we will characterize their ecosystem relevance by leveraging Tara Oceans metatranscriptomes to explore how their genetic toolkit is expressed across varying oceanic conditions on a global scale, and by performing laboratory manipulations to test hypotheses on a local scale.
Overall, we will provide the first glimpse of the morphological, life history, behavioral and transcriptional features of currently unknown globally abundant protists. Discoveries about their biology will have immediate implications for studies of the ecology and community structure of oceanic ecosystems. Finally, we anticipate that our efforts will lead to the establishment of ecologically relevant microbial eukaryotes as new model systems whose biology can be studied intensively in the laboratory.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
28006 MADRID
Spain
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.