In collaboration with an international team of researchers,
scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and
Marine Research, have sequenced the genome of the calcified alga Emiliania
huxleyi and have found an explanation for the enormous adaptive potential and
global distribution of this unicellular alga. As the researchers report in an
online prepublication of the scientific journal Nature, the microalga’s “trick”
is genetic diversity. It has a particularly large so-called pan-genome which
means that the unicellular algae share a certain set of common genetic
information present in all strains. The remaining gene pool varies and depends
on the geographic location and the respective living conditions of the algae.
The calcified E. huxleyi is the first alga in which scientists have been able
to detect this special characteristic.