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⇱ Taming the smallest predators of the oceans | The ISME Journal


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Abstract

Protists (unicellular eukaryotes) arguably account for most eukaryotic diversity and are central players of the biosphere. Known protist diversity and biology is largely based on cultured strains. Yet, environmental molecular surveys have unveiled entirely novel lineages that, as their prokaryotic counterparts, are essentially uncultured. Culture bias is an important drawback for any microbe-related science and is particularly severe for heterotrophic protists, which depend on organic food sources for growth. Here, we show how ecologically significant bacterivorous protists have been brought into culture by mimicking in situ conditions. Single cells sorted by serial dilution or flow cytometry were inoculated into seawater amended with natural bacterial assemblage at nearly in situ abundances. Strains belonging to lineages only known so far from environmental sequencing were isolated. Among them, Minorisa minuta gen. nov. sp. nov. forms a novel branch within Rhizaria, holding a key evolutionary position, and with an average size of 1.4 μm represents one of the smallest bacterial grazers known to date. It has a worldwide planktonic distribution and can account for 5% of heterotrophic protists communities in coastal waters. Physiological features of this strain can partly explain its success in the environment. Culturing ecologically relevant but elusive protists provide invaluable material for ecophysiology, genomics, ecosystem modeling and evolutionary issues.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by projects MICROVIS (CTM2007–62140/MAR, MEC), FLAME (CGL2010–16304, MICINN) and BioMarKs (2008–6530, ERA-net Biodiversa, EU). JdC was funded by the I3P program (I3PPRE-06–00676, CSIC) and FN by the Marie-Curie fellowship ESUMAST (MEIF-CT-2005–025000). We thank Marco Álvarez for help in TSA-FISH, Vanessa Balagué for help in molecular analysis, José Manuel Fortuño for help in SEM and Nicole Poulton for help in flow cytometry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar, (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Javier del Campo, Fabrice Not, Irene Forn & Ramon Massana

  2. Marine Plankton Group, UMR7144 Station Biologique de Roscoff, CNRS-UPMC, Roscoff, France

    Fabrice Not

  3. Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, USA

    Michael E Sieracki

Authors
  1. Javier del Campo
  2. Fabrice Not
  3. Irene Forn
  4. Michael E Sieracki
  5. Ramon Massana

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Javier del Campo.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on The ISME Journal website

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del Campo, J., Not, F., Forn, I. et al. Taming the smallest predators of the oceans. ISME J 7, 351–358 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.85

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.85

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