Dr. Eric Capo Institut de Ciencies del Mar, Spanish National Research Council Merging two worlds: application of molecular ecology tools in paleolimnology to study the long-term changes in aquatic microbial communities Historical deposits of sedimentary DNA are a promising target for molecular tools with potential to inform about long-term changes in aquatic microbiome (i.e., bacteria, archaea protists, fungi, viruses) and how microorganisms are controlled by viral infection, pathogens, and larger predators (e.g., zooplankton and fish). As sedimentary DNA archives can encompass timescales that span decades to hundreds of thousands of years, they complement and enhance contemporary data derived from water monitoring. The data from such historical monitoring is integrative and enable ad hoc assessment of biological responses to past environmental and more recent anthropogenic perturbations. Over the last decade, studies using sedimentary DNA metabarcoding successfully reconstruct temporal changes in microbial communities, including cyanobacteria and microbial eukaryotes. I present here an overview of this research field, some of my ongoing research projects on lakes Biwa (Japan), Ekoln (Sweden) and the Black Sea, and reveal the potential to answer questions that can only be provided when including sedimentary DNA for the reconstruction of long-term temporal changes in aquatic microbial communities.
Bio: Eric Capo has a PhD in molecular paleoecology with skills in molecular biology, data analysis and aquatic microbial ecology. His interests lie in the ecology of aquatic systems (freshwater and marine systems), the temporal dynamics of microbial communities and their functional responses to environmental perturbations (climate, eutrophication, mercury pollution). He is the founder and coordinator of the sedaDNA scientific society, an international network of sedaDNA research and the co-founder of Mersorcium, a consortium about microbial Hg-cycling in the environment. Comments are closed.
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