In situ hybridization of phytoplankton using fluorescently labeled rRNA probes

Phytoplankton are one of the major components of ecosystem processes and play an important role in many biogeochemical cycles in the marine and freshwater environment. Despite their importance, many microalgae are poorly described and little is known of broad spatial and temporal scale trends in their abundance and distribution. Reasons for this are that microalgae are often small, lack distinct morphological features, and are unculturable, which make analyses difficult. It is now possible by using molecular biological techniques to advance our knowledge of aquatic biodiversity and to understand how biodiversity supports ecosystem structure, dynamics, and resilience. We present in this chapter a brief review of the progress that has been made in analyzing microalgae from populations to the species level. The described methods range from DNA fingerprinting techniques, such as random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs), and simple sequence repeats (SSRs), to microsatellites, which are used in population studies, to sequence analysis, which help to reconstruct the evolutionary history of organisms and to examine relationships at various taxonomic levels. Special emphasis is given to the application of molecular probes for the identification and characterization of microalgal taxa. The fast and secure identification of phytoplankton, especially of toxic species, is important from an ecological and economical point of view and whole-cell hybridization with specific fluorochrome-labeled probes followed by fluorescence microscopy or flow cytometry offers a fast method for this purpose. In this context, we present a detailed protocol for fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) probes that can be applied to many algal cell types and discuss practical considerations of its use.