Abstract
Since the discovery of high abundances of virus-like particles in aquatic environment, emergence of new analytical methods in microscopy and molecular biology has allowed significant advances in the characterization of the femtoplankton, i.e., floating entities filterable on a 0.2 µm pore size filter. The successive evidences in the last decade (2010–2020) of high abundances of biomimetic mineral–organic particles, extracellular vesicles, CPR/DPANN (Candidate phyla radiation/Diapherotrites, Parvarchaeota, Aenigmarchaeota, Nanoarchaeota and Nanohaloarchaeota), and very recently of aster-like nanoparticles (ALNs), show that aquatic ecosystems form a huge reservoir of unidentified and overlooked femtoplankton entities. The purpose of this review is to highlight this unsuspected diversity. Herein, we focus on the origin, composition and the ecological potentials of organic femtoplankton entities. Particular emphasis is given to the most recently discovered ALNs. All the entities described are displayed in an evolutionary context along a continuum of complexity, from minerals to cell-like living entities.
Highlights
Victor Hensen first introduced the term “plankton” in 1887 to define all organisms that live in suspension in water and have limited locomotion power to maintain their position against currents
Over the last two decades, technical advances in molecular and microscopic sciences have revealed an unexpected and underestimated diversity of femtoplankton entities other than viruses, including, for example, various tiny prokaryotes CPR (Candidate phyla radiation), DPANN (Diapherotrites, Parvarchaeota, Aenigmarchaeota, Nanoarchaeota and Nanohaloarchaeota) [4] and, more recently, intriguing aster-like nanoparticles (ALNs) that we have reported in various aquatic systems [5]
Soler et al [196] suggested that extracellular vesicles (EVs) could outnumber true viral particles in some aquatic environments and Colombet et al [5] reported that ALNs can account for up to 40% of virioplankton counted by transmission electron microscopy
Summary
Victor Hensen first introduced the term “plankton” in 1887 to define all organisms that live in suspension in water and have limited locomotion power to maintain their position against currents. The formation of the majority of BMOPs/nanobes could be the result of physico-chemical processes (e.g., diameter, like those in Figure 2A–H) results, in most cases, in volumes largely under the theoretical aggregation) are entirely abiotic, or combinations of minerals andnucleic molecules derived from biological minimal cellthat volume If they are not living entities, BMOPs and nanobes can be considered as an evolutionary step towards cell formation through the formation of mineral–organic complexes Their composition and organization into cell type structures (including a membrane mimicking the cell wall, [27]) could be consistent with the beginning of the compartmentalization process known as one of the critical steps in the genesis of earlier free or symbiotic cell forms
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