Planktonic Protist Biodiversity and Biogeography in Lakes From Four Brazilian Várzea Floodplains

While the biodiversity and biogeography of protists inhabiting most ecosystems have been intensely studied using different sequencing approaches, tropical ecosystems are relatively under-sampled. Here we sampled planktonic waters from 32 lakes associated with four different várzea floodplains in Brazil, and sequenced the DNA using a metabarcoding approach. The protist communities in these lakes were dominated by the largely free-living Discoba and Ciliophora unlike previously sampled Neotropical environments, but the community similarities between samples were likewise low. These protists inhabiting the várzea floodplains potentially form part of the large diversity of unknown diversity in the tropics.