Project overview
We have been studying genetic and genomic mechanisms of mixotrophy in model species in order to evaluate the ecological and evolutionary advantages of this lifestyle over purely autotrophic species.
Mixotrophic protists are single celled eukaryotes that obtain carbon and energy from more than one trophic process (e.g. photosynthesis and phagocytosis). The ability of protists to combine photosynthetic and heterotrophic nutrition in a single cell is well known, but the tremendous ecological and evolutionary significance of this behavior is not widely recognized.
While mixotrophy is pervasive phylogenetically, organisms differ in the type of mixotrophy that they use. Some species are predominantly phototrophic and supplement photosynthesis with a small amount of heterotrophy, while other species are predominantly heterotrophic and use photosynthesis only for extending survival when prey are scarce. The impact of this behavior in terms of carbon and nutrient cycling is not well understood.
We studied three mixotrophic genera of algae (Prymnesium, Dinobryon, Ochromonas) that span the spectrum of mixotrophic abilities to better understand the mechanisms of the relative importance of light-harvesting and consumptive nutritional styles under differing environmental conditions.
This project is funded by the Marine Microbial Initiative of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
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Publications related to this project