Research Director
Integrative Maine Ecology Department
Tel. +39 081 5833271
Fax: +39 081 7641355
e-mail: wiebe.kooistra(at)szn.it
Skype: wiebe.kooistra3
Research interests
Chaetocerotaceae constitutes a cosmopolitan family of marine planktonic diatoms, which includes two genera: Chaetoceros and Bacteriastrum (Round et al. 1990). The hallmark of the family constitutes the setae; spine-like siliceous extensions that grow out of the frustule. Vegetative cells of many species can form spores, which can remain dormant for years. The family is particularly diversified in the Gulf of Naples (GoN). Monitoring efforts incorporate High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) metabarcoding methods to screen this diversity through the season. Tasks include: assessing morphological and molecular genetic diversity of the family in the GoN and exploration of species diversity in a NGS sequence dataset of the variable V4 region of the SSU rDNA generated from plankton samples gathered over subsequent seasonal cycles at the LTER MC. In practice, my studies take place in the lab, using unialgal cultures, as well as in the field. I use light and electron microscopy as well as molecular methods.
Selected Publications
Kooistra WHCF, Sarno D, Balzano S, Gu H, Andersen RA, Zingone A. Global diversity and biogeography of Skeletonema species (Bacillariophyta). Protist 2008;159:177-193
Kooistra WHCF, Sarno D, Hernandez Becerril DH, Assmy P, DiPrisco C, Montresor M. Comparative molecular and morphological phylogenetic analyses of taxa in the Chaetocerotaceae (Bacillariophyta). Phycologia 2010;49:471-500
Logares R, Audic S, Bass D, Bittner L, Boutte C, Christen R, et al. Patterns of Rare and Abundant Marine Microbial Eukaryotes. Current Biology 01/2014;DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2014.02.050
Massana R, Gobet A, Audic S, Bass D, Bittner L, Boutte C et al. Marine protist diversity in European coastal waters and sediments as revealed by high-throughput sequencing. Environmental Microbiology 2015; DOI:10.1111/1462-2920.12955
Forster D, Dunthorn M, Mahé F, Dolan JR, Audic S, Bass D et al. Benthic protists: the under-charted majority. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 2016; 92: 1-11, ISSN: 0168-6496, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiw120
Li Y, Boonprakob A, Gaonkar CC, Kooistra WHCF, Lange CB, Hernández-Becerril DB et al. Diversity in the globally distributed diatom genus Chaetoceros (Bacillariophyceae) I. Three new species from warm-temperate waters. PLoS ONE 2017; 12: e0168887. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0168887.
Gaonkar CC, Kooistra WHCF, Lange CB, Montresor M, Sarno D. Two new species in the Chaetoceros socialis complex (Bacillariophyta): C. sporotruncatus and C. dichatoensis, and characterization of its relatives, C. radicans and C. cinctus. Journal of Phycology 2018; 53: 889–907. DOI: 10.1111/jpy.12554
Piredda R, Tomasino MP, D'Erchia AM, Manzari C, Pesole G, Montresor M et al. Diversity and temporal patterns of planktonic protist assemblages at a Mediterranean Long Term Ecological Research site. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 2017; 93: fiw200. DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiw200.
Piredda R, Claverie J-M, Decelle J, De Vargas C, Dunthorn M, Edvardsen B et al. Diatom Diversity through HTS-metabarcoding in coastal European seas. Scientific Reports 2018; 8:18059 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-36345-9.
Gaonkar CC, Piredda R, Minucci C, Mann DG, Montresor M, Sarno D, Kooistra WHCF Annotated 18S and 28S rDNA reference sequences of taxa in the planktonic diatom family Chaetocerotaceae. PLoS ONE 2018; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208929
