You may be wondering why someone working in a fungal lab would be attending a protistology conference. The answer is that trichomycetes (trichos) are considered to constitute an ecological group consisting of both protist and fungal endosymbionts that inhabit (mostly) arthropod guts. And because the scientific community is not exactly overrun with protistologists, the task of studying these obscure, yet interesting, organisms sometimes falls to mycologists.
Thus, I came to be involved with the amazing world of protists. I remember the first time I looked at a live amoeba under a microscope during my undergrad – I was immediately fascinated with this little single celled, amorphous thing crawling around on the slide. The more I have learned about the diversity and uniqueness of these organisms, the more I want to learn. The goal of my thesis work is to resolve some of the evolutionary relationships among the protist trichos by creating a multigene phylogeny. I am at the end of my first year now, and decided to present my preliminary results (in the form of a poster) at the International Congress of Protistology meeting in Vancouver, BC.
A friend from another lab was also attending, and we decided to drive up to Vancouver, as it would be cheaper than flying. In total, it takes about 10 and 1/2 hours of driving, plus about 1-2 hours of waiting to cross the border. Vancouver is a beautiful city (from what little bit I got to see), and we just happened to be there in time to see part of the annual fireworks competition that is held there (the Celebration of Light). At the conference, I was able to hear more about many different groups of protists, which I had not been very familiar with previously, such as diatoms and excavates. But one of the main points that seemed to be repeated in several talks, and one that stood out in my mind, is how little scientists actually know about these organisms. Aspects of their diversity, function, ecology and even (in some cases) basic life history traits are unknown. For example, there are many genomic and transcriptomic studies being conducted on various groups, and it’s not uncommon for the function of the majority of the genes sequenced to be a mystery.
Besides a decorative magnet to add to my collection, another souvenir I was able to bring home with me was motivation. I am the first in my immediate family (and much of my extended family) to attend college, and the only one involved in science (and by this statement, I do not mean to imply judgment, simply point out my lack of experience with the whole process). I have often felt as if I am blundering along, not really sure of where I might be heading. But talking to other students and graduates helped me to realize that there are opportunities out there that I can aim for. While positions for protistologists may not be plentiful, and funding for non-human related science has been cut pretty much across the board, there are still ways to continue studying these little cells that I love.
— Nicole Reynolds