title: Ecological and evolutionary significance of novel protist lineages.
abstract: Environmental molecular surveys targeting protist diversity have unveiled novel and uncultured lineages in a variety of ecosystems, ranging from completely new high-rank lineages, to new taxa moderately related to previously described organisms. The ecological roles of some of these novel taxa have been studied, showing that in certain habitats they may be responsible for critical environmental processes. Moreover, from an evolutionary perspective they still need to be included in a more accurate and wider understanding of the eukaryotic tree of life. These seminal discoveries promoted the development and use of a wide range of more in-depth culture-independent approaches to access this diversity, from metabarcoding and metagenomics to single cell genomics and FISH. Nonetheless, culturing using classical or innovative approaches is also essential to better characterize this new diversity. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists now face the challenge of apprehending the significance of this new diversity within the eukaryotic tree of life.
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Electronic address: javier.delcampo@botany.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Del Campo
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 6, CNRS, Adaptation et Diversité en Milieu Marin (UMR 7144), équipe DIPO, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29688 Roscoff, France.
authors.forename: Laure
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guillou
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hehenberger
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Ramiro
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Logares
authors.affiliation: Ecologie Systématique Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91400 Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Purificación
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: López-García
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Ramon
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Massana
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005821:Genetic Techniques
keywords: Culturing; FISH; Metabarcoding; Metagenomics; Novel lineages; Single cell genomics