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Is There a Size Limit for Cosmopolitan Distribution in Free-Living Microorganisms? A Biogeographical Analysis of Testate Amoebae from Polar Areas

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Abstract

A long-standing debate in microbial ecology is the extent to which free-living microorganisms exhibit cosmopolitan distributions. We use a comparison of testate amoebae communities in cold “polar” locations (Arctic, Antarctic, and Tibet) to investigate how a microorganism’s size affects its probability of having a cosmopolitan distribution. We show that the probability a given taxa being reported in all three locations increases as testate size decreases. Likewise, excluding those testates found only in Tibet, very small testates (<20 μm) are more likely to occur in both the Arctic and Antarctic than in either of these poles alone. Attempting to correct for phylogeny reduces the number of statistically significant relationships—both because of decreased sample size and potentially real phylogenetic patterns, although some size-dependent effects were still apparent. In particular, taxa found in both the Arctic and Antarctic poles were significantly smaller than congeneric taxa found only in Tibet. This pattern may in part be due to habitat effects, with the Tibetan samples being more likely to have come from aquatic sites which may be more suitable for larger taxa. Overall, our analysis suggests that, at least within testate amoebae, a cosmopolitan distribution becomes increasingly common as median taxon size decreases.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Edward Mitchell and our referees for comments. The manuscript was completed while DW was on a sabbatical visit to WSL and EPFL in Switzerland—he thanks both organizations for their hospitality. JY was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX2-YW-Q02-04 and KZCX2-YW-QN401), the Key Science and Technology Project of Fujian Province, China (No. 2009Y0044), the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Program (No. 2009DFB90120), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30800097).

Author contributions

The idea for this work was independently conceived by JY and DW/HS. Data compilation was by HGS (Antarctic), DMW (Arctic), and JY (Tibet). Statistical analysis was by TS with collaboration from DW. DW wrote the paper with help from all other authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Dadao, Xiamen, 361021, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Yang

  2. Environmental Sciences, James Starley Building, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Humphrey G. Smith

  3. Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, K1S 5B6, ON, Canada

    Thomas N. Sherratt

  4. School of Natural Science and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK

    David M. Wilkinson

  5. Ecosystems Boundaries Research Group, WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Site Lausanne, Station 2, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    David M. Wilkinson

  6. Laboratory of Ecological Systems—ECOS, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 2, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    David M. Wilkinson

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  1. Jun Yang
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  2. Humphrey G. Smith
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  4. David M. Wilkinson
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Correspondence to David M. Wilkinson.

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Yang, J., Smith, H.G., Sherratt, T.N. et al. Is There a Size Limit for Cosmopolitan Distribution in Free-Living Microorganisms? A Biogeographical Analysis of Testate Amoebae from Polar Areas. Microb Ecol 59, 635–645 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-009-9615-8

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