title: Metacommunity analysis of amoeboid protists in grassland soils.
abstract: This study reveals the diversity and distribution of two major ubiquitous groups of soil amoebae, the genus Acanthamoeba and the Myxomycetes (plasmodial slime-moulds) that are rarely, if ever, recovered in environmental sampling studies. We analyzed 150 grassland soil samples from three Biodiversity Exploratories study regions in Germany. We developed specific primers targeting the V2 variable region in the first part of the small subunit of the ribosomal RNA gene for high-throughput pyrotag sequencing. From ca. 1 million reads, applying very stringent filtering and clustering parameters to avoid overestimation of the diversity, we obtained 273 acanthamoebal and 338 myxomycete operational taxonomic units (OTUs, 96% similarity threshold). This number is consistent with the genetic diversity known in the two investigated lineages, but unequalled to date by any environmental sampling study. Only very few OTUs were identical to already known sequences. Strikingly different OTUs assemblages were found between the three German regions (PerMANOVA p.value = 0.001) and even between sites of the same region (multiple-site Simpson-based similarity indices <0.4), showing steep biogeographical gradients.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Department of Terrestrial Ecology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Fiore-Donno
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Department of Terrestrial Ecology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weinert
authors.affiliation: UFZ - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Soil Ecology, Halle (Saale), Germany.|German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Tesfaye
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wubet
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Department of Terrestrial Ecology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bonkowski
mesh_terms: D000656:Amoeba / Q000235:genetics*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D014644:Genetic Variation; D065948:Grassland; D056186:Metagenomics; D010802:Phylogeny; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012987:Soil / Q000469:parasitology*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil