microorganisms Article Tracing the Origin of Planktonic Protists in an Ancient Lake Nataliia V. Annenkova 1,* , Caterina R. Giner 2,3 and Ramiro Logares 2,* 1 Limnological Institute Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 3, Ulan-Batorskaya St., 664033 Irkutsk, Russia 2 Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM), CSIC, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 37-49, ES08003 Barcelona, Spain;
[email protected] 3 Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada * Correspondence:
[email protected] (N.V.A.);
[email protected] (R.L.) Received: 26 February 2020; Accepted: 7 April 2020; Published: 9 April 2020 Abstract: Ancient lakes are among the most interesting models for evolution studies because their biodiversity is the result of a complex combination of migration and speciation. Here, we investigate the origin of single celled planktonic eukaryotes from the oldest lake in the world—Lake Baikal (Russia). By using 18S rDNA metabarcoding, we recovered 1414 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) belonging to protists populating surface waters (1–50 m) and representing pico/nano-sized cells. The recovered communities resembled other lacustrine freshwater assemblages found elsewhere, especially the taxonomically unclassified protists. However, our results suggest that a fraction of Baikal protists could belong to glacial relicts and have close relationships with marine/brackish species. Moreover, our results suggest that rapid radiation may have occurred among some protist taxa, partially mirroring what was already shown for multicellular organisms in Lake Baikal. We found 16% of the OTUs belonging to potential species flocks in Stramenopiles, Alveolata, Opisthokonta, Archaeplastida, Rhizaria, and Hacrobia.