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Evolution of Dictyostelid Social Amoebas Inferred from the Use of Molecular Tools

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Dictyostelids

Abstract

Dictyostelid social amoebas are eukaryotic microbes distributed all around the globe. As with many other protist groups, one fundamental and revolutionary event in the study of dictyostelid (Amoebozoa) systematics has been the use of molecular tools. This has radically changed our understanding of evolution across the group and has greatly expanded the potential use of dictyostelids as model organisms for a wide range of areas including biomedicine, development, evolutionary biology, and molecular ecology. This is further supported by genome sequencing that has been carried out for at least one species in each of the major groups. Phylogenomic data are also essential to pinpointing the origin of diversification of dictyostelids in terrestrial ecosystems, which is basic for understanding the evolutionary history across eukaryotic amoeboid lineages.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank R. Escalante, T. Heger, and A. Perrigo for valuable comments on this chapter. MR was supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme to MR (PIEF-GA-2009-236501).

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  1. Systematic Biology, Organismal Biology Department, EBC, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Maria Romeralo & Omar Fiz-Palacios

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  1. Maria Romeralo
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  2. Omar Fiz-Palacios
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Correspondence to Maria Romeralo .

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  1. , Department of Systematic Biology, University of Uppsala, Norbyvägen 18D, Uppsala, 75236, Sweden

    Maria Romeralo

  2. , Systematic Biology, University of Uppsala, Norbyvägen 18D, Uppsala, 75236, Sweden

    Sandra Baldauf

  3. Alberto Sols CSIC-UAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas, Arturo Duperier 4, Madrd, 28029, Spain

    Ricardo Escalante

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Romeralo, M., Fiz-Palacios, O. (2013). Evolution of Dictyostelid Social Amoebas Inferred from the Use of Molecular Tools. In: Romeralo, M., Baldauf, S., Escalante, R. (eds) Dictyostelids. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38487-5_9

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