Beyond the limits of the unassigned protist microbiome: inferring large-scale spatio-temporal patterns of Syndiniales marine parasites.

ABSTRACT: Marine protists are major components of the oceanic microbiome that remain largely unrepresented in culture collections and genomic reference databases. The exploration of this uncharted protist diversity in oceanic communities relies essentially on studying genetic markers from the environment as taxonomic barcodes. Here we report that across 6 large scale spatio-temporal planktonic surveys, half of the genetic barcodes remain taxonomically unassigned at the genus level, preventing a fine ecological understanding for numerous protist lineages. Among them, parasitic Syndiniales (Dinoflagellata) appear as the least described protist group. We have developed a computational workflow, integrating diverse 18S rDNA gene metabarcoding datasets, in order to infer large-scale ecological patterns a

SUBMITTER: Rizos I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9975217 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature