Descrizione del progetto
La biologia sconosciuta degli eucarioti microbici marini più diffusi
Quali sono le specie di eucarioti microbici più numerose negli oceani illuminati dal sole di tutto il mondo e che ruolo hanno nell’ecologia globale? Il progetto GROWCEAN, finanziato dall’UE, isolerà alcune specie numerose e sconosciute di eucarioti microbici marini e li trasformerà in nuovi organismi modello per studiare l’ecologia e l’evoluzione degli oceani. Innanzitutto, caratterizzerà la loro biologia cellulare, il comportamento, l’ontogenesi e le interazioni tra le specie utilizzando la microscopia time-lapse e a fluorescenza. Userà poi tecniche a singola cellula per sequenziarne i genomi/trascrittomi e capire il loro potenziale metabolico. Infine, interrogherà set di dati di sequenze globali per formare ipotesi sulle loro caratteristiche ecologiche, per poi testare queste ipotesi in colture di laboratorio, allo scopo di scoprire come questi protisti, abbondanti in tutto il mondo, influenzano gli ecosistemi oceanici.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
28006 Madrid
Spagna