Biology and Ecology of Abundant Protists Lab

The BEAP Lab is part of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) in Barcelona. Our goal is to isolate, culture and subsequently characterize the cell biology, behavior and ecosystem relevance of the most abundant unknown protists on earth. Protists are single-celled and colonial microbial eukaryotes which, due to their size (generally between a few micrometers and a few hundred micrometers) are a critical part of the food webs in all of earth's principal ecosystems. In addition, protists form the backbone of the eukaryotic tree of life, meaning that studies of protists inform our understanding of the evolution of eukaryotic cell biology, gene content and species diversity.