University of Cologne, Institute of Zoology, General Ecology, Cologne, Germany.
CIRAD, UMR BGPI, Montpellier, France.
Commun Biol. 2021 Apr 23;4(1):501. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02012-5.
Heterotrophic protists (unicellular eukaryotes) form a major link from bacteria and algae to higher trophic levels in the sunlit ocean. Their role on the deep seafloor, however, is only fragmentarily understood, despite their potential key function for global carbon cycling. Using the approach of combined DNA metabarcoding and cultivation-based surveys of 11 deep-sea regions, we show that protist communities, mostly overlooked in current deep-sea foodweb models, are highly specific, locally diverse and have little overlap to pelagic communities. Besides traditionally considered foraminiferans, tiny protists including diplonemids, kinetoplastids and ciliates were genetically highly diverse considerably exceeding the diversity of metazoans. Deep-sea protists, including many parasitic species, represent thus one of the most diverse biodiversity compartments of the Earth system, forming an essential link to metazoans.
异养原生生物（单细胞真核生物）在阳光照射的海洋中，构成了从细菌和藻类到更高营养级的主要联系。尽管它们可能对全球碳循环具有关键功能，但对于深海海底的作用，我们的了解仍然非常零碎。利用联合 DNA 宏条形码和对 11 个深海区域的基于培养的调查方法，我们表明，原生生物群落主要在当前的深海食物网模型中被忽视，但具有高度特异性、局部多样性，与浮游群落的重叠很少。除了传统上被认为是有孔虫的生物外，微小的原生生物，包括双滴虫、动基体生物和纤毛虫，在遗传上具有高度多样性，大大超过了后生动物的多样性。深海原生生物，包括许多寄生物种，因此代表了地球系统中最多样化的生物多样性组成部分之一，与后生动物形成了一个重要的联系。
