Vampire amoebae or vampyrellids feed on algae, fungi, protozoa and small metazoans. Vampyrellids are much more diverse especially in marine habitats. A complementary approach of culturing and sequence database was used with ten new vampyrellid isolates, eight from marine or brackish sediments and two from soil or freshwater sediment. Samples were placed in artificial sea water and volvic mineral water. Samples were then checked on a regular basis for any vampyrellid- looking amoebae, once they had high density of vampyrellid- looking amoebae, the plates were photographed and DNA was collected before losing them. In this study ten new stains of vampyrellid- looking amoebae were identified, some of the forms were known as Leptophrys, Platyreta, and Theratromyxa weber.
Figure 1, 2, and 3 from Berney, C. et al, 2013. shows the new strains of vampyrellid- looking amoebae that were found in the study.
Original Article: Berney, C. et al (2013). Vampires in the oceans: predatory cercozoan amoebae in marine habitats. The ISME Journal.
No comments:
Post a Comment