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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2006, p. 5159-5164, Vol. 72, No. 8
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00601-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Evidence for Geographic Isolation and Signs of Endemism within a Protistan Morphospecies{dagger}

Jens Boenigk,1* Karin Pfandl,1 Tobias Garstecki,2,{ddagger} Hauke Harms,4 Gianfranco Novarino,3 and Antonis Chatzinotas4

Institute for Limnology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Mondseestr. 9, A-5310 Mondsee, Austria,1 Natural Environment Research Council, British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, United Kingdom,2 The Natural History Museum, Department of Zoology, Protista and Mathematics Division, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom,3 UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle, Department of Environmental Microbiology, Permoserstrasse 15, D-04318 Leipzig, Germany4

Received 14 March 2006/ Accepted 8 May 2006

The possible existence of endemism among microorganisms resulting from and preserved by geographic isolation is one of the most controversial topics in microbial ecology. We isolated 31 strains of "Spumella-like" flagellates from remote sampling sites from all continents, including Antarctica. These and another 23 isolates from a former study were characterized morphologically and by small-subunit rRNA gene sequence analysis and tested for the maximum temperature tolerance. Only a minority of the Spumella morpho- and phylotypes from the geographically isolated Antarctic continent follow the worldwide trend of a linear correlation between ambient (air) temperature during strain isolation and heat tolerance of the isolates. A high percentage of the Antarctic isolates, but none of the isolates from locations on all other continents, were obligate psychrophilic, although some of the latter were isolated at low ambient temperatures. The drastic deviation of Antarctic representatives of Spumella from the global trend of temperature adaptation of this morphospecies provides strong evidence for geographic transport restriction of a microorganism; i.e., Antarctic protistan communities are less influenced by transport of protists to and from the Antarctic continent than by local adaptation, a subtle form of endemism.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute for Limnology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Mondseestr. 9, A-5310 Mondsee, Austria. Phone: 43 6232 312545. Fax: 43 6232 3578. E-mail: jens.boenigk{at}oeaw.ac.at.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

{ddagger} Present address: United Nations Environment Programme, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 219 Huntington Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, United Kingdom.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2006, p. 5159-5164, Vol. 72, No. 8
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.00601-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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