Molecular screening of free-living microbial eukaryotes: diversity and distribution using a meta-analysis

Numerous environmental gene library studies have shown that eukaryote microbial diversity is much greater than expected. Molecular surveys of several ‘extreme’ and some more anthropomorphically commonplace environments have revealed many previously unsampled micro-eukaryotic lineages. However, it ca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in microbiology 2005-06, Vol.8 (3), p.240-252
Main Authors: Richards, Thomas A, Bass, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Ecology
Environment
Eukaryota - genetics
Evolution, Molecular
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Genetic Variation
Microbiology
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Summary:Numerous environmental gene library studies have shown that eukaryote microbial diversity is much greater than expected. Molecular surveys of several ‘extreme’ and some more anthropomorphically commonplace environments have revealed many previously unsampled micro-eukaryotic lineages. However, it cannot be assumed that all of the sequences recovered from these studies are derived from real organisms, and for those that are, many questions remain about their distribution and ecology. Integrating all available sequence data from these studies reveals patterns of distribution, diversity and evolutionary relationships that are not accessible from independent analyses of the individual surveys and enables us to review the wider implications of such studies.
ISSN:1369-5274
1879-0364
DOI:10.1016/j.mib.2005.04.010