Discovering 25 novel phyla that fill gaps in the eukaryotic tree of life
- 1Tartu Ülikool: Tartu Ulikool
Abstract
Protists play important roles in food chains and symbioses in soil and aquatic environments, displaying an enormous morphological and functional diversity. While most commonly found protist species are well known to science, our global-scale environmental DNA survey across soil, water, and sediments reveals dozens of novel, phylum-level phylogenetic lineages that remain to be characterized for basic morphology and function. A vast majority of these undescribed taxa occur in marine water and sediments, but some are common in soil. Most of these novel taxa have distinct substrate and habitat preferences and biogeographic patterns. To accord these lineages scientific agency and enable unambiguous scientific communication, we propose formal names for 150 species to phylum-level taxa from 25 deep lineages based on eDNA and rRNA gene long-read sequence information.
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BibTeX
@misc{tedersoo2026discovering,
title = {{Discovering 25 novel phyla that fill gaps in the eukaryotic tree of life}},
author = {L. Tedersoo and V. Mikryukov and S. Sildever and D. Chmolowska and K. Piwosz and M. Meyneng and A. Monjot and J. del Campo and E. Lara and A. Hakimzadeh and S. Geisen and K. Panksep and M. Bahram and A. Oliverio and R. Shepherd and S. Rückert and A. Lanzen and V. Hurdeal and M. Concetta Eliso and R. Casotti and M. Hosseynimoghadam and R. Siano and M. Chauvet and V. Prins and V. Kisand and S. Anslan and S. Alkahtani and H. Nilsson},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.28.747736},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.28.747736v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Discovering 25 novel phyla that fill gaps in the eukaryotic tree of life
AU - L. Tedersoo
AU - V. Mikryukov
AU - S. Sildever
AU - D. Chmolowska
AU - K. Piwosz
AU - M. Meyneng
AU - A. Monjot
AU - J. del Campo
AU - E. Lara
AU - A. Hakimzadeh
AU - S. Geisen
AU - K. Panksep
AU - M. Bahram
AU - A. Oliverio
AU - R. Shepherd
AU - S. Rückert
AU - A. Lanzen
AU - V. Hurdeal
AU - M. Concetta Eliso
AU - R. Casotti
AU - M. Hosseynimoghadam
AU - R. Siano
AU - M. Chauvet
AU - V. Prins
AU - V. Kisand
AU - S. Anslan
AU - S. Alkahtani
AU - H. Nilsson
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.28.747736
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.28.747736v1
AB - Protists play important roles in food chains and symbioses in soil and aquatic environments, displaying an enormous morphological and functional diversity. While most commonly found protist species are well known to science, our global-scale environmental DNA survey across soil, water, and sediments reveals dozens of novel, phylum-level phylogenetic lineages that remain to be characterized for basic morphology and function. A vast majority of these undescribed taxa occur in marine water and sediments, but some are common in soil. Most of these novel taxa have distinct substrate and habitat preferences and biogeographic patterns. To accord these lineages scientific agency and enable unambiguous scientific communication, we propose formal names for 150 species to phylum-level taxa from 25 deep lineages based on eDNA and rRNA gene long-read sequence information.
ER -