Publications by authors named "Clafy Fernandes"

Article Synopsis
  • Telonemia are ancient marine protists with established evolutionary links to the SAR supergroup, but their ecological roles and distribution in freshwater environments remain under-researched.
  • A global study of over a thousand freshwater metagenomes and 407 samples from lakes revealed a wide distribution of Telonemia, though no new major clades were identified, indicating their diversity is well-represented in current surveys.
  • Findings suggest Telonemia prefer colder, deeper areas of lakes in the Northern Hemisphere, where they can make up 10%-20% of the heterotrophic flagellate population, highlighting their significance in freshwater food webs.
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Tarballs are semi-solid remnants of crude oil and they are formed in marine environment after oil-spill incidents. They are composed of diverse hydrocarbons; some of which are recalcitrant in nature. Recent studies based on amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA gene suggested that tarballs support hundreds of bacterial genera and provided insights into their role as hydrocarbon degraders and potential human pathogens.

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The beaches of Goa state in India are frequently polluted with tarballs, specifically during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. Tarballs contain hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which pose significant environmental risks. Microbes associated with tarballs reportedly possess capabilities to degrade toxic hydrocarbons present in tarballs.

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