Monograph of the Haptorida (Ciliophora, Litostomatea)

The project is an extension of my former FWF grant (P15017-B06) "Monograph of the family Spathidiidae". The Spathidiidae are part of the large subclass Haptoria which contains the order Haptorida. The Haptorida are a group of ciliates, single-celled organisms, the best known of which is the "slipper animalcule" (Pantoffeltierchen). Ciliates belong to the protists, which embrace the world of heterotrophic and autotrophic "Protozoa" or "Infusionstierchen", that is, mostly single-celled organisms of usually microscopic size, altogether about 250,000 named species, extant and fossil. The Haptorida consist of about 140 named species, many of which have been poorly described and which were reviewed for the last time in 1930. Thus, most present-day authors consider them as indeterminable, and all agree that just this group is in pressing need of revision. The objectives and perspectives of the project, which is integrated in the worldwide biodiversity programme, can be summarized as follows: To critically review our knowledge about the Haptorida; To reinvestigate and neotypify poorly known species as well as to describe about 50 new species discovered in soils worldwide. Methods will include live observation, silver impregnation, ontogenesis, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and molecular biology (gene sequence data to be obtained by joint work with colleagues); The outcome of the revision not only will make it possible to identify these "difficult" ciliates but will, hopefully, also give us an idea how many ciliate species exist at all. At present, highly divergent estimations are discussed, ranging from 3,000 to 30,000 species; To educate young scientists in alpha-taxonomy (=description of species), a scientific discipline threatened to become extinct in Europe and the USA, at least as concerns heterotrophic, free-living protists. Both, the postdoc and the graduate student will be trained also in molecular methods. The monograph will be written in English language and published by SPRINGER in the series "Monographiae Biologicae", just as the spathidiid monographs. My laboratory has great experience in doing monographic work on ciliates and is in this respect unique worldwide. Thus, this can be an important step in the career of the collaborators. The project is planed for three years. The financial support needed amounts to about 382,000 Euro (~ 460 000 US Dollar), mainly to finance a postdoc, a graduate student, and a technician.

Ciliophora or ciliates (`Infusoria`) are single-celled organisms (Protozoa) of microscopic size (usually < 1 mm). Their diversity (number of species actually exists) and phylogeny (relationships) are poorly known. Thus, I initiated the research project mentioned in the title in 2007, emphasizing biodiversity. We described 38 new ciliate species in 34 individual, peer- reviewed papers between the years 2007 to end of 2010. Further, we revised part of the species- rich subclass Haptorida, viz., the order Dileptida (`proboscis animals`). This order was chosen because the molecular phylogenies showed that they are on the basis of the litostomatean clade, a surprising result important for understanding the evolution of the class Litostomatea. The revision of the dileptids resulted in a monograph with 500 pages, where 66 valid taxa are described in detail and with many light- and electron- microscopic micrographs. A third remarkable result of the project was the `discovery` of a talented young scientist, who was very interested in the subject and thus promoted with the haptorids. Ciliates occur in most water- containing habitats, i.e., in marine and limnetic ecosystems and in and on multicellular animals and plants. As the name says, ciliates have covered the body with fine hairs (cilia), used for swimming and food acquisition. When the environmental conditions become unfavourable, they have the ability to produce a dormant stage, called resting cyst. During encystment, the cells round up and secret a wall so resistant that the fragile cells can survive for years. Ciliates belong to the heterotrophic protists, together with amoebae, flagellates and sporozoans, which lack chlorophyll and must thus feed for nutrition. As yet, about 10.000 ciliate species have been described; however, this are possibly only 20% of the actual diversity, which is poorly known because most ciliates are harmless and thus comparatively uninteresting for most scientists. A main goal of the project was the education of young scientists in morphological and molecular systematics. Fortunately, I found indeed a young magister, Peter Vdacny from the Zoological Institute of the University of Bratislava, who was not only highly interested in this kind of research but also very talented. To learn molecular taxonomy, he spent 6 month in the laboratory of Prof. Slava Epstein, Boston University, and came back with three excellent papers. The `discovery` of Peter, who promoted to the Dr. grade in February 2011, is one of the most important results of the project because systematics and, especially, the description of species is a special work loved by few scientists. Thus, there is a worldwide lack of a- taxonomists (= who can identify and describe the individual species). Based on his excellent dissertation and publications, Peter got an assistant position at his University and can proceed with ciliate research.