Investigation of the dinoflagellate community of Lake Tovel by genetic analysis of environmental samples

摘要

Dinoflagellates constitute a diverse and ubiquitous assemblage in marine and freshwater ecosystems. They play an important part in aquatic food web as their nutritional modes are auto-, mixo- or het-erotrophic. Hence, the dinoflagellate assemblage comprises both primary producers and predators. Due to recent advances in molecular biology (particularly DNA sequence determination) the taxonomy of dinoflagellates is currently under major revision (Saunders et al. 1997, Daugbjerg et al. 2000). Phy-logenetic studies on dinoflagellates published in the last decade include mostly marine species (FlO JOR-gensen et al. 2004, Gast et al. 2004). Community studies of marine dinoflagellates based on environmental DNA samples are few in number, whereas DNA studies on freshwater dinoflagellate communities are virtually in the making.