Red Algal and Other Extremophiles
Figure 8: Composite of many microscopic or small eukaryotic organisms giving a snapshot of eukaryotic diversity. All photos were taken by Julia Van Etten as part of her “Couch Microscopy” project (
www.instagram.com/couch_microscopy). From left to right and then top to bottom: Daucus carota (wild carrot), Cosmarium sp. (green algae), Hydrodictyon sp. (green algae), Polysiphonia sp. (red algae), Glaucocystis sp. (glaucophyte algae), Carchesium sp. (protozoan), Nassula sp. (protozoan), amoeba (genus unknown), Arcella dentata (testate amoeba), Aspergillus sp. (mold), Phacus sp. (Euglena), diatoms: Navicula sp. (top), Gomphonema sp. (bottom), Melosira sp. (filamentous diatoms), damselfly larva, freshwater snail, longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis), colonial rotifers (Sinantherina socialis), tardigrade, Hydra viridissima, unidentified juvenile freshwater fish.
microbial cohabitants in an urban body of water. Untapped eukaryote diversity needs to be addressed in order to add biodiverse representation to and eliminate bias from growing fields like the study of eukaryotic HGT and novel gene devel- opment. Figure 8 shows a variety of eukaryotes found in New Jersey, many of which have yet to be sequenced or analyzed for HGT.
Concluding Remarks The Cyanidiophyceae are a group of red algae that
have acquired a useful array of HGTs conferring adaptive traits that allow them to evolve in hostile environments reminiscent of the early Earth and possibly exoplanets. They are unusual in terms of
the niches they occupy as
polyextremophilic eukaryotes but are not unusual among eukaryotes with respect to their possession of HGTs. As more eukaryote genomes are sequenced and mined for
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HGTs, it becomes ever more apparent that these genes play a significant role in eukaryotic evolution. Understanding the dynamics of HGT-derived proteins within native metabolic networks is the next step in elucidating their functional role. In order to more exhaustively understand HGT and its broad impact across the eukaryotic tree of life, it is necessary to sequence and characterize more organisms, particularly cryptic species via both molecular phylogenomic methods as well as microscopy.
Acknowledgements JVE’s work is supported by NASA Future Investigators
in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST grant 80NSSC19K1542). JVE would like to acknowledge Prof. Debashish Bhattacharya and all members of the Bhattacharya lab for their help and support with this research as well as Dr. Lynn Rothschild and the members of the Rothschild lab.
www.microscopy-today.com • 2020 November
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