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OrthoDB v10: sampling the diversity of animal, plant, fungal, protist, bacterial and viral genomes for evolutionary and functional annotations of orthologs Open
OrthoDB (https://www.orthodb.org) provides evolutionary and functional annotations of orthologs. This update features a major scaling up of the resource coverage, sampling the genomic diversity of 1271 eukaryotes, 6013 prokaryotes and 6488…
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Contrasting the relative importance of species sorting and dispersal limitation in shaping marine bacterial versus protist communities Open
A central challenge in microbial ecology is to understand the underlying mechanisms driving community assembly, particularly in the continuum of species sorting and dispersal limitation. However, little is known about the relative importan…
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The global-scale distributions of soil protists and their contributions to belowground systems Open
We studied the dominant protists found in soils across the globe and their contributions to belowground food webs.
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Marine protist diversity in <span>E</span> uropean coastal waters and sediments as revealed by high‐throughput sequencing Open
Summary Although protists are critical components of marine ecosystems, they are still poorly characterized. Here we analysed the taxonomic diversity of planktonic and benthic protist communities collected in six distant E uropean coastal …
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Metatranscriptomic census of active protists in soils Open
The high numbers and diversity of protists in soil systems have long been presumed, but their true diversity and community composition have remained largely concealed. Traditional cultivation-based methods miss a majority of taxa, whereas …
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Soil protist communities form a dynamic hub in the soil microbiome Open
Soil microbes are essential for soil fertility. However, most studies focus on bacterial and/or fungal communities, while the top-down drivers of this microbiome composition, protists, remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated how so…
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Diversity and temporal patterns of planktonic protist assemblages at a Mediterranean Long Term Ecological Research site Open
We tracked temporal changes in protist diversity at the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) station MareChiara in the Gulf of Naples (Mediterranean Sea) on eight dates in 2011 using a metabarcoding approach. Illumina analysis of the V4 an…
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Genome-reconstruction for eukaryotes from complex natural microbial communities Open
Microbial eukaryotes are integral components of natural microbial communities, and their inclusion is critical for many ecosystem studies, yet the majority of published metagenome analyses ignore eukaryotes. In order to include eukaryotes …
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10KP: A phylodiverse genome sequencing plan Open
Understanding plant evolution and diversity in a phylogenomic context is an enormous challenge due, in part, to limited availability of genome-scale data across phylodiverse species. The 10KP (10,000 Plants) Genome Sequencing Project will …
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The Plasmodiophora brassicae genome reveals insights in its life cycle and ancestry of chitin synthases Open
Plasmodiophora brassicae causes clubroot, a major disease of Brassica oil and vegetable crops worldwide. P. brassicae is a Plasmodiophorid, obligate biotrophic protist in the eukaryotic kingdom of Rhizaria. Here we present the 25.5 Mb geno…
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Diversity and ecology of protists revealed by metabarcoding Open
Protists are the dominant eukaryotes in the biosphere where they play key functional roles. While protists have been studied for over a century, it is the high-throughput sequencing of molecular markers from environmental samples - the app…
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Between a Pod and a Hard Test: The Deep Evolution of Amoebae Open
Amoebozoa is the eukaryotic supergroup sister to Obazoa, the lineage that contains the animals and Fungi, as well as their protistan relatives, and the breviate and apusomonad flagellates. Amoebozoa is extraordinarily diverse, encompassing…
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The planktonic protist interactome: where do we stand after a century of research? Open
Microbial interactions are crucial for Earth ecosystem function, but our knowledge about them is limited and has so far mainly existed as scattered records. Here, we have surveyed the literature involving planktonic protist interactions an…
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Marked seasonality and high spatial variability of protist communities in shallow freshwater systems Open
Small eukaryotes have key roles in aquatic ecosystems, influencing their local environment, global biogeochemical cycles and climate. Their impact depends on community structure, which varies along time. However, very few studies take into…
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The prey’s scent – Volatile organic compound mediated interactions between soil bacteria and their protist predators Open
Protists are major predators of bacteria in soils. However, it remains unknown how protists sense their prey in this highly complex environment. Here, we investigated whether volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of six phylogenetic distinct s…
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The Eukaryotic Life on Microplastics in Brackish Ecosystems Open
Microplastics (MP) constitute a widespread contaminant all over the globe. Rivers and wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) transport annually several million tons of MP into freshwaters, estuaries and oceans, where they provide increasing ar…
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Short-term dynamics and interactions of marine protist communities during the spring–summer transition Open
We examined the short-term variability, by daily to weekly sampling, of protist assemblages from March to July in surface water of the San Pedro Ocean Time-series station (eastern North Pacific), by V4 Illumina sequencing of the 18S rRNA g…
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Not all are free‐living: high‐throughput <span>DNA</span> metabarcoding reveals a diverse community of protists parasitizing soil metazoa Open
Protists, the most diverse eukaryotes, are largely considered to be free‐living bacterivores, but vast numbers of taxa are known to parasitize plants or animals. High‐throughput sequencing ( HTS ) approaches now commonly replace cultivatio…
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Apicomplexan-like parasites are polyphyletic and widely but selectively dependent on cryptic plastid organelles Open
The phylum Apicomplexa comprises human pathogens such as Plasmodium but is also an under-explored hotspot of evolutionary diversity central to understanding the origins of parasitism and non-photosynthetic plastids. We generated single-cel…
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The Multifaceted Zoonotic Risk of H9N2 Avian Influenza Open
Poultry-adapted H9N2 avian influenza viruses (AIVs) are commonly found in many countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, and although classified as low pathogenic viruses, they are an economically important disease. Besides t…
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Asymptomatic Intestinal Colonization with Protist<i>Blastocystis</i>Is Strongly Associated with Distinct Microbiome Ecological Patterns Open
Given the results of our study and other reports of the effects of the most common human gut protist on the diversity and composition of the bacterial microbiome, Blastocystis and, possibly, other gut protists should be studied as ecosyste…
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Acetogenesis from H<sub>2</sub>plus CO<sub>2</sub>and nitrogen fixation by an endosymbiotic spirochete of a termite-gut cellulolytic protist Open
Symbiotic associations of cellulolytic eukaryotic protists and diverse bacteria are common in the gut microbial communities of termites. Besides cellulose degradation by the gut protists, reductive acetogenesis from H 2 plus CO 2 and nitro…
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Making sense of environmental sequencing data: Ecologically important functional traits of the protistan groups Cercozoa and Endomyxa (Rhizaria) Open
We have compiled a database of functional traits for two widespread and ecologically important groups of protists, Cercozoa and Endomyxa (Rhizaria). The functional traits of microorganisms are crucially important for interpreting results f…
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Interactions Between Bacteria, Protozoa and Nematodes in Soil Open
Rønn, Regin, Vestergård, Mette, Ekelund, Flemming (2012): Review paper Interactions between Bacteria, Protozoa and Nematodes in Soil. Acta Protozoologica 51 (3): 223-235, DOI: 10.4467/16890027AP.12.018.0764, URL: https://www.mendeley.com/c…
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Network of Interactions Between Ciliates and Phytoplankton During Spring Open
The annually recurrent spring phytoplankton blooms in freshwater lakes initiate pronounced successions of planktonic ciliate species. Although there is considerable knowledge on the taxonomic diversity of these ciliates, their species-spec…
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Benthic protists: the under-charted majority Open
Marine protist diversity inventories have largely focused on planktonic environments, while benthic protists have received relatively little attention. We therefore hypothesize that current diversity surveys have only skimmed the surface o…
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Functional Traits and Spatio-Temporal Structure of a Major Group of Soil Protists (Rhizaria: Cercozoa) in a Temperate Grassland Open
Soil protists are increasingly appreciated as essential components of soil foodwebs; however, there is a dearth of information on the factors structuring their communities. Here we investigate the importance of different biotic and abiotic…
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Protists are an integral part of the <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> microbiome Open
Summary Although protists occupy a vast range of habitats and are known to interact with plants among other things via disease suppression, competition or growth stimulation, their contributions to the ‘phytobiome’ are not well described. …
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Evolutionary distinctiveness of fatty acid and polyketide synthesis in eukaryotes Open
Fatty acids, which are essential cell membrane constituents and fuel storage molecules, are thought to share a common evolutionary origin with polyketide toxins in eukaryotes. While fatty acids are primary metabolic products, polyketide to…
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Multiple origins of Heliozoa from flagellate ancestors: New cryptist subphylum Corbihelia, superclass Corbistoma, and monophyly of Haptista, Cryptista, Hacrobia and Chromista Open
Heliozoan protists have radiating cell projections (axopodia) supported by microtubular axonemes nucleated by the centrosome and bearing granule-like extrusomes for catching prey. To clarify previously confused heliozoan phylogeny we seque…