| Title |
Amplicon-Based Pyrosequencing Reveals High Diversity of Protistan Parasites in Ships’ Ballast Water: Implications for Biogeography and Infectious Diseases
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Microbial Ecology, October 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s00248-015-0684-6 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
K. M. Pagenkopp Lohan, R. C. Fleischer, K. J. Carney, K. K. Holzer, G. M. Ruiz |
| Abstract |
Ships' ballast water (BW) commonly moves macroorganisms and microorganisms across the world's oceans and along coasts; however, the majority of these microbial transfers have gone undetected. We applied high-throughput sequencing methods to identify microbial eukaryotes, specifically emphasizing the protistan parasites, in ships' BW collected from vessels calling to the Chesapeake Bay (Virginia and Maryland, USA) from European and Eastern Canadian ports. We utilized tagged-amplicon 454 pyrosequencing with two general primer sets, amplifying either the V4 or V9 domain of the small subunit (SSU) of the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene complex, from total DNA extracted from water samples collected from the ballast tanks of bulk cargo vessels. We detected a diverse group of protistan taxa, with some known to contain important parasites in marine systems, including Apicomplexa (unidentified apicomplexans, unidentified gregarines, Cryptosporidium spp.), Dinophyta (Blastodinium spp., Euduboscquella sp., unidentified syndinids, Karlodinium spp., Syndinium spp.), Perkinsea (Parvilucifera sp.), Opisthokonta (Ichthyosporea sp., Pseudoperkinsidae, unidentified ichthyosporeans), and Stramenopiles (Labyrinthulomycetes). Further characterization of groups with parasitic taxa, consisting of phylogenetic analyses for four taxa (Cryptosporidium spp., Parvilucifera spp., Labyrinthulomycetes, and Ichthyosporea), revealed that sequences were obtained from both known and novel lineages. This study demonstrates that high-throughput sequencing is a viable and sensitive method for detecting parasitic protists when present and transported in the ballast water of ships. These data also underscore the potential importance of human-aided dispersal in the biogeography of these microbes and emerging diseases in the world's oceans. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 5 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 4 | 80% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 20% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 74 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | 1 | 1% |
| Unknown | 73 | 99% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 22 | 30% |
| Researcher | 19 | 26% |
| Student > Master | 11 | 15% |
| Student > Bachelor | 5 | 7% |
| Professor | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 4 | 5% |
| Unknown | 11 | 15% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 22 | 30% |
| Environmental Science | 14 | 19% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 10 | 14% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 4 | 5% |
| Immunology and Microbiology | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 7 | 9% |
| Unknown | 15 | 20% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 April 2020.
All research outputs
#2,182,693
of 23,663,122 outputs
Outputs from Microbial Ecology
#111
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Outputs of similar age
#32,100
of 285,091 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Microbial Ecology
#3
of 41 outputs
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