PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Gottschling, Marc
AU  - Czech, Lucas
AU  - Mahé, Frédéric
AU  - Adl, Sina
AU  - Dunthorn, Micah
TI  - The windblown: possible explanations for dinophyte DNA in forest soils
AID  - 10.1101/2020.08.07.242388
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.08.07.242388
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/10/2020.08.07.242388.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/10/2020.08.07.242388.full
AB  - Dinophytes are widely distributed in marine- and fresh-waters, but have yet to be conclusively documented in terrestrial environments. Here we evaluated the presence of these protists from an environmental DNA metabarcoding dataset of Neotropical rainforest soils. Using a phylogenetic placement approach with a reference alignment and tree, we showed that the numerous sequencing reads that were assigned to the dinophytes did not associate with taxonomy, environmental preference, nutritional mode, or dormancy. All the dinophytes in the soils are most likely windblown dispersal units of aquatic species, and are not biologically active residents of terrestrial environments.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.