A5019735693- Protist diversity and phylogeny
- Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms
- Genetic and Kidney Cyst Diseases
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Cellular transport and secretion
- Marine and coastal ecosystems
- Algal biology and biofuel production
- Historical Education Studies Worldwide
- Education Systems and Policy
- Polar Research and Ecology
- Australian History and Society
- Conferences and Exhibitions Management
University of Alberta
2012-2022
University of Cambridge
2014
Microbial communities in the world ocean are affected strongly by oceanic circulation, creating characteristic marine biomes. The high connectivity of most makes it difficult to disentangle selective retention colonizing genotypes (with traits suited biome specific conditions) from evolutionary selection, which would act on founder over time. Arctic Ocean is exceptional with limited exchange other oceans and ice covered since last age. To test whether microalgal lineages evolved apart algae...
Abstract Tailings ponds in the Athabasca oil sands (Canada) contain fluid wastes, generated by extraction of bitumen from ores. Although autochthonous prokaryotic communities have been relatively well characterized, almost nothing is known about microbial eukaryotes living anoxic soft sediments tailings or thin oxic layer water that covers them. We carried out first next‐generation sequencing study eukaryotic diversity ponds. In metagenomes prepared sediment and surface water, we detected...
Plastids utilize a complex gene expression machinery, which has coevolved with the underlying genome sequence. Relatively, little is known about genome-wide evolution of transcript processing in algal plastids that have undergone endosymbiotic events. We present first study plastid acquired through serial endosymbiosis, fucoxanthin-containing dinoflagellate Karlodinium veneficum. The fucoxanthin an extremely divergent and utilizes two unusual pathways, 3′-poly(U) tail addition sequence...
Dinoflagellates are a group of unicellular protists with immense ecological and evolutionary significance cell biological diversity. Of the photosynthetic dinoflagellates, majority possess plastid containing pigment peridinin, whereas some lineages have replaced this by serial endosymbiosis plastids distinct affiliations, including fucoxanthin pigment-containing haptophyte origin. Previous studies described presence widespread substitutional RNA editing in peridinin genes. Because reports...
Dinoflagellates are algae of tremendous importance to ecosystems and public health. The cell biology genome organization dinoflagellate species is highly unusual. For example, the plastid genomes peridinin-containing dinoflagellates encode only a minimal number genes arranged on small elements termed "minicircles". Previous studies peridinin have found evidence for divergent sequence evolution, including extensive substitutions, novel insertions deletions, use alternative translation...
Reclamation of anthropogenically impacted environments is a critical issue worldwide. In the oil sands extraction industry Alberta, reclamation mining-impacted areas, especially areas affected by tailings waste, an important aspect mining life cycle. A technique currently under study water-capping, where are capped water to create end-pit lake (EPL). Base Mine Lake (BML) first full-scale in Alberta region. this study, we sequenced eukaryotic 18S rRNA genes recovered from 92 samples...
In animal and fungal model organisms, the complexities of cell biology have been analyzed in exquisite detail much is known about how these organisms function at cellular level. However, biologists generally use include only a tiny fraction true diversity eukaryotic forms. The divergent processes observed more distant lineages are still largely unknown general scientific community. Despite relative obscurity comparative studies them across had profound implications for our understanding...
The ciliate phylum is a group of protists noted for their unusual membrane trafficking system and apparent environmental ubiquity; as highly successful microbial predators, they are found in all manner environments the ability specific species to adapt extremely challenging conditions makes them valued bioindicators. Ciliates have also been used many years cell biological models because large size ease culturing, fundamental structures, particularly membrane-bound organelles, ciliates were...
Protists in the phylum Ciliophora possess a complex membrane-trafficking system, including osmoregulatory Contractile Vacuoles and specialized secretory organelles. Molecular cell biological investigations Tetrahymena thermophila have identified components of protein machinery associated with organelles, mucocysts. The Qa-SNARE Syn7lp plays role mucocyst biogenesis as do subunits CORVET tethering (specifically Vps8). Indeed, possesses expanded gene complements several components, Vps33 which...
Abstract The Arctic Ocean is being impacted by warming temperatures, increasing freshwater and highly variable ice conditions. microalgal communities underpinning marine food webs, once thought to be dominated diatoms, include a phylogenetically diverse range of small algal species, whose biology remains poorly understood. Here, we present genome sequences cryptomonad, haptophyte, chrysophyte, pelagophyte, isolated from the water column ice. Comparing protein family distributions sequence...
Summary In the endocytic pathway of animals, two related complexes, called CORVET (Class C Core Vacuole/Endosome Transport) and HOPS (Homotypic fusion protein sorting), act as both tethers factors for early late endosomes, respectively. Mutations in or lead to trafficking defects contribute human disease including immune dysfunction. are conserved throughout eukaryotes but remarkably, ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, HOPS-specific subunits absent while CORVET-specific have proliferated. VPS8...