Fantastic Beasts: Unfolding Mixoplankton Temporal Variability in the Belgian Coastal Zone Through DNA-Metabarcoding

Protists engaging in photo- and phago- mixotrophy (mixoplankton) are common members of the global plankton community. They are involved in primary production and contribute to the carbon and nutrient cycling. Two major mixoplankton functional types (MFTs) are considered based upon the origin of their photosynthetic abilities: innate for constitutive-mixoplankton (CM) and obtained from prey for non-constitutive mixoplankton (NCM). Regardless of their significance, little attention has been paid to their diversity and temporal succession. We performed a metabarcoding survey of the V4-18S rRNA ge... Mehr ...