Dataset Information

Unassigned diversity of planktonic foraminifera from environmental sequencing revealed as known but neglected species.

ABSTRACT: Most research on extant planktonic foraminifera has been directed towards larger species (>0.150 mm) which can be easily manipulated, counted and yield enough calcite for geochemical analyses. This has drawn attention towards the macroperforate clade and created an impression of their numerical and ecological dominance. Drawing such conclusions from the study of such "giants" is a dangerous path. There were times in the evolutionary history of planktonic foraminifera when all species were smaller than 0.1 mm and indeed numerous small taxa, mainly from the microperforate clade, have been formally described from the modern plankton. The significance of these small, obscure and neglected species is poorly characterized and their relationship to the newly discovered hyperabundant but uncharacterized lineages of planktonic foraminifera in metabarcoding datasets is unknown. To determine, who is hiding in the metabarcoding datasets, we carried out an extensive sequencing of 18S rDNA targeted at small and obscure species. The sequences of the newly characterized small and obscure taxa match many of the previously uncharacterized lineages found in metabarcoding data. This indicates that most of the modern diversity in planktonic foraminifera has been taxonomically captured, but the role of the small and neglected taxa has been severely underestimated.

SUBMITTER: Morard R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6428320 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Unassigned diversity of planktonic foraminifera from environmental sequencing revealed as known but neglected species.

Morard Raphaël R Vollmar Nele M NM Greco Mattia M Kucera Michal M

PloS one 20190321 3

Most research on extant planktonic foraminifera has been directed towards larger species (>0.150 mm) which can be easily manipulated, counted and yield enough calcite for geochemical analyses. This has drawn attention towards the macroperforate clade and created an impression of their numerical and ecological dominance. Drawing such conclusions from the study of such "giants" is a dangerous path. There were times in the evolutionary history of planktonic foraminifera when all species were smalle ...[more]

PMID: 30897140

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Project description:Unless they adapt, populations facing persistent stress are threatened by extinction. Theoretically, populations facing stress can react by either disruption (increasing trait variation and potentially generating new traits) or stabilization (decreasing trait variation). In the short term, stabilization is more economical, because it quickly transfers a large part of the population closer to a new ecological optimum. However, stabilization is deleterious in the face of persistently increasing stress, because it reduces variability and thus decreases the ability to react to further changes. Understanding how natural populations react to intensifying stress reaching terminal levels is key to assessing their resilience to environmental change such as that caused by global warming. Because extinctions are hard to predict, observational data on the adaptation of populations facing extinction are rare. Here, we make use of the glacial salinity rise in the Red Sea as a natural experiment allowing us to analyse the reaction of planktonic Foraminifera to stress escalation in the geological past. We analyse morphological trait state and variation in two species across a salinity rise leading to their local extinction. Trilobatus sacculifer reacted by stabilization in shape and size, detectable several thousand years prior to extinction. Orbulina universa reacted by trait divergence, but each of the two divergent populations remained stable or reacted by further stabilization. These observations indicate that the default reaction of the studied Foraminifera is stabilization, and that stress escalation did not lead to the emergence of adapted forms. An inherent inability to breach the global adaptive threshold would explain why communities of Foraminifera and other marine protists reacted to Quaternary climate change by tracking their zonally shifting environments. It also means that populations of marine plankton species adapted to response by migration will be at risk of extinction when exposed to stress outside of the adaptive range.

Dataset Information

Unassigned diversity of planktonic foraminifera from environmental sequencing revealed as known but neglected species.

Publications

Unassigned diversity of planktonic foraminifera from environmental sequencing revealed as known but neglected species.

Similar Datasets

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