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Soil Protists in Three Neotropical Rainforests are Hyperdiverse and Dominated by Parasites

Frédéric Mahé, Colomban de Vargas, David Bass, Lucas Czech, Alexandros Stamatakis, Enrique Lara, David Singer, Jordan Mayor, John Bunge, Sarah Sernaker, Tobias Siemensmeyer, Isabelle Trautmann, Sarah Romac, Cédric Berney, Alexey Kozlov, Edward A.D. Mitchell, Christophe V. W. Seppey, Elianne Egge, Guillaume Lentendu, Rainer Wirth, Gabriel Trueba, Micah Dunthorn
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/050997
Frédéric Mahé
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Colomban de Vargas
2CNRS, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
3Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
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David Bass
4Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum London, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
5Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Barrack Road, The Nothe, Weymouth, Dorset DT4 8UB, United Kingdom
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Lucas Czech
6Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
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Alexandros Stamatakis
6Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
7Institute for Theoretical Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Am Fasanengarten, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
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Enrique Lara
8Laboratory of Soil Biodiversity, Université de Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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David Singer
8Laboratory of Soil Biodiversity, Université de Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Jordan Mayor
9Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skogsmarksgränd, 90183 Umeå, Sweden
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John Bunge
10Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Gates Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
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Sarah Sernaker
11Department of Statistical Science, Cornell University, Malott Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
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Tobias Siemensmeyer
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Isabelle Trautmann
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Sarah Romac
2CNRS, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
3Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
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Cédric Berney
2CNRS, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
3Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, Place Georges Teissier, 29680 Roscoff, France
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Alexey Kozlov
6Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloß-Wolfsbrunnenweg, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany
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Edward A.D. Mitchell
8Laboratory of Soil Biodiversity, Université de Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
12Jardin Botanique de Neuchâtel, Pertuis-du-Sault, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Christophe V. W. Seppey
8Laboratory of Soil Biodiversity, Université de Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Elianne Egge
13Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Blindernveien, 0316 Oslo, Norway
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Guillaume Lentendu
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Rainer Wirth
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
4Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum London, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
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Gabriel Trueba
15Instituto de Microbiología, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Diego de Robles, Quito, Ecuador
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Micah Dunthorn
1Department of Ecology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Straße, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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ABSTRACT

Animal and plant richness in tropical rainforests has long intrigued naturalist. More recent work has revealed that parasites contribute to high tropical tree diversity (Bagchi et al., 2014; Terborgh, 2012) and that arthropods are the most diverse eukaryotes in these forests (Erwin, 1982; Basset et al., 2012). It is unknown if similar patterns are reflected at the microbial scale with unicellular eukaryotes or protists. Here we show, using environmental metabarcoding and a novel phylogeny-aware cleaning step, that protists inhabiting Neotropical rainforest soils are hyperdiverse and dominated by the parasitic Apicomplexa, which infect arthropods and other animals. These host-specific protist parasites potentially contribute to the high animal diversity in the forests by reducing population growth in a density-dependent manner. By contrast, we found too few Oomycota to broadly drive high tropical tree diversity in a host-specific manner under the Janzen-Connell model (Janzen, 1970; Connell, 1970). Extremely high OTU diversity and high heterogeneity between samples within the same forests suggest that protists, not arthropods, are the most diverse eukaryotes in tropical rainforests. Our data show that microbes play a large role in tropical terrestrial ecosystems long viewed as being dominated by macro-organisms.

Contact: dunthorn@rhrk.uni-kl.de

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 03, 2016.
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Soil Protists in Three Neotropical Rainforests are Hyperdiverse and Dominated by Parasites
Frédéric Mahé, Colomban de Vargas, David Bass, Lucas Czech, Alexandros Stamatakis, Enrique Lara, David Singer, Jordan Mayor, John Bunge, Sarah Sernaker, Tobias Siemensmeyer, Isabelle Trautmann, Sarah Romac, Cédric Berney, Alexey Kozlov, Edward A.D. Mitchell, Christophe V. W. Seppey, Elianne Egge, Guillaume Lentendu, Rainer Wirth, Gabriel Trueba, Micah Dunthorn
bioRxiv 050997; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/050997
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Soil Protists in Three Neotropical Rainforests are Hyperdiverse and Dominated by Parasites
Frédéric Mahé, Colomban de Vargas, David Bass, Lucas Czech, Alexandros Stamatakis, Enrique Lara, David Singer, Jordan Mayor, John Bunge, Sarah Sernaker, Tobias Siemensmeyer, Isabelle Trautmann, Sarah Romac, Cédric Berney, Alexey Kozlov, Edward A.D. Mitchell, Christophe V. W. Seppey, Elianne Egge, Guillaume Lentendu, Rainer Wirth, Gabriel Trueba, Micah Dunthorn
bioRxiv 050997; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/050997

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