Biological Sciences, Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2013 Feb;22(4):912-4. doi: 10.1111/mec.12173.
We live on a microbial planet. Microorganisms dominate in terms of numbers of lineages, numbers of organisms, biomass and evolutionary innovations. Yet much remains to be learned about our microbial neighbours. We have gotten to know a few species that have been transformed into 'laboratory rats' (i.e. model organisms), but even here our understanding of the natural history of these lineages remains inadequate as there are few data from populations living in natural habitats. Zufall et al. (2013) move beyond this trend by providing insights into the natural history of Tetrahymena thermophila, a ciliate that has been used in many studies of cellular and molecular biology. Characterization of T. thermophila sampled from numerous ponds across this ciliate's range in Eastern North America reveals the following: (i) considerable differentiation among isolates, with the greatest diversity among lineages in New England, and (ii) a relatively small effective population size for this model ciliate. Such population data are fundamental for inferences about the origins of the numerous remarkable features of T. thermophila.
我们生活在一个微生物的星球上。从谱系数量、生物数量、生物量和进化创新的角度来看，微生物占据主导地位。然而，关于我们的微生物邻居，还有很多需要了解。我们已经了解了一些已经转化为“实验室老鼠”（即模式生物）的物种，但即使在这里，我们对这些谱系的自然历史的理解仍然不足，因为来自自然栖息地的种群的数据很少。Zufall 等人。（2013）通过深入了解嗜热四膜虫的自然历史，超越了这一趋势，嗜热四膜虫是一种纤毛动物，在许多细胞和分子生物学研究中被使用。对来自北美东部嗜热四膜虫分布范围内众多池塘的样本进行的特征描述揭示了以下几点：（i）分离株之间存在相当大的差异，在新英格兰地区的谱系中多样性最大，（ii）这种模式纤毛虫的有效种群规模相对较小。此类种群数据是推断嗜热四膜虫众多显著特征起源的基础。
