Sistemática de microeucariotos ciliados (Alveolata, Ciliophora) simbiontes de mamíferos herbívoros no Brasil

Abstract

The present thesis contributed with the knowledge on the symbiotic ciliates of herbivorous mammals in Brazil. For the first time in Central and South America, a large taxonomic inventory of ciliated microeucaryotes associated with domestic (bovine, equine and ovine) and wild (capybara) herbivorous mammals in Brazil was conducted. The inventory, performed through multidisciplinary characterizations, demonstrate the presence of ~90 ciliate species, distributed in two classes, two subclasses, three orders and 10 families. The characterization through a multidisciplinary approach has provided important new structural morphological data, especially about species infraciliary bands patterns, and molecular (11 new 18S rDNA sequences) of trichtomatid ciliates, helping to elucidate many long-standing taxonomic problems and inconsistencies in the systematics of the subclass Trichostomatia. Moreover, systematic reviews, molecular phylogenetic reconstructions and revisited underexplored morphological data, never performed before for this group, contributed to a better understanding of the evolution of the characters in Trichostomatia, allowing the elaboration of hypotheses about the relationships within this group and the establishment of new taxonomic classifications based on evolutionary divergences.