Environmental rRNA inventories miss over half of protistan diversity
Author Information
Author(s): Jeon Sunok, Bunge John, Leslin Chesley, Stoeck Thorsten, Hong Sunhee, Epstein Slava S
Primary Institution: Kangwon National University
Hypothesis
The study investigates whether increasing sequencing efforts can recover species missed from clone libraries or if they cannot be detected at all due to PCR biases.
Conclusion
The study concludes that using a single pair of primers significantly underestimates the true community richness of protists, with many species likely missed.
Supporting Evidence
- The study shows that each PCR primer set-specific clone library is not a sample from the community diversity but rather from a fraction of this diversity.
- The pooled data is qualitatively richer than individual libraries, even if normalized to the same sequencing effort.
- The majority of available protistan rRNA gene surveys likely sampled less than half of the target diversity.
Takeaway
When scientists use just one type of tool to look for tiny living things, they might miss a lot of them. Using different tools helps find more of these tiny creatures.
Methodology
The study analyzed four protistan inventories obtained using different general eukaryotic PCR primers and applied statistical models to estimate microbial richness.
Potential Biases
PCR primer biases may lead to significant underrepresentation of certain species in the community.
Limitations
The study's estimates may still be underestimates due to the inherent biases of PCR methods.
Statistical Information
Confidence Interval
17 ± 4% to 49 ± 10%
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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