Full title: High-Throughput Sequencing Studies of Microbial Eukaryotes: Frontiers, Challenges, and the Decadal Outlook
Organizers: Holly Bik (University of California Riverside) and Kelley Thomas (University of New Hampshire)
Microbial eukaryotes (organisms <1mm, including nematodes, tardigrades, platyhelminthes, other “minor” metazoan phyla, protists, fungi, and eggs/larval stages of larger species) are abundant and ubiquitous in both pelagic and benthic habitats, performing key functions such as nutrient cycling and sediment stability in marine ecosystems. Yet, their unexplored diversity represents one of the major challenges in biology and currently limits our capacity to understand, mitigate and remediate the consequences of environmental change. The modern Environmental -Omics toolkit includes metabarcoding surveys (e.g. rRNA, COI amplicons), metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and targeted genome sequencing, and such deep sequencing approaches are now being used to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses in both marine and terrestrial habitats. Session speakers will be called upon to highlight the promise and challenge of using these molecular approaches across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life, focusing on applications in diverse disciplines such as marine ecology, evolutionary biology, and computer science. We aim to catalyze cross-disciplinary interactions, facilitating discussions on how the scientific community can adapt to continued, rapid advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics. This session will be sponsored by NSF RCN EukHiTS (http://eukhits.wordpress.com), providing travel awards for selected students and early-career participants with submitted abstracts.
Organizers: Holly Bik (University of California Riverside) and Kelley Thomas (University of New Hampshire)
Microbial eukaryotes (organisms <1mm, including nematodes, tardigrades, platyhelminthes, other “minor” metazoan phyla, protists, fungi, and eggs/larval stages of larger species) are abundant and ubiquitous in both pelagic and benthic habitats, performing key functions such as nutrient cycling and sediment stability in marine ecosystems. Yet, their unexplored diversity represents one of the major challenges in biology and currently limits our capacity to understand, mitigate and remediate the consequences of environmental change. The modern Environmental -Omics toolkit includes metabarcoding surveys (e.g. rRNA, COI amplicons), metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and targeted genome sequencing, and such deep sequencing approaches are now being used to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses in both marine and terrestrial habitats. Session speakers will be called upon to highlight the promise and challenge of using these molecular approaches across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life, focusing on applications in diverse disciplines such as marine ecology, evolutionary biology, and computer science. We aim to catalyze cross-disciplinary interactions, facilitating discussions on how the scientific community can adapt to continued, rapid advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics. This session will be sponsored by NSF RCN EukHiTS (http://eukhits.wordpress.com), providing travel awards for selected students and early-career participants with submitted abstracts.