Daniel Vaulot

Emeritus Senior Scientist (CNRS)

After attending the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, the Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural and working as an engineer for a few years, I completed a PhD on the cell cycle regulation of phytoplankton under the guidance of Penny Chisholm at MIT, Cambridge, US. From 1985 to 2019, I have been a researcher at CNRS, working at the Station Biologique of Roscoff (France). I developed initially applications of flow cytometry to measure picoplankton abundance in the Ocean. Around 1995, I began to focus on the diversity and ecology of eukaryotic picophytoplankton developing molecular approaches such as gene cloning, metabarcoding and metagenomics. Currently my interests revolve around green algae, bolidophytes and haptophytes involved in symbioses with cyanobacteria. I have also a keen interest in processing and analysis of large metabarcoding datasets, using in particular the R language. I created in 1998 the Roscoff Culture Collection, which is now the biggest collection in the world for marine phytoplankton. I am also maintaining the PR2 databases, a large repository of curated eukaryotic 18S rRNA sequences and metabarcodes.

I have served as an editor for the Journal of Phycology, Aquatic Environmental Microbiology, Scientific Reports and more recently as a senior editor of the ISME Journal.

I am an Emeritus Senior Scientist at CNRS affiliated with the UMR 7144, ECOMAP team at the Station Biologique of Roscoff]. From 2018 to 2022 a Visiting Professor at the Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where I worked within the GEEK Lab. Since August 2023, I am a guest researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway in the Department of Biosciences, AQUA division.

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Interests

Marine Phytoplankton
Microbial Ecology
Polar ecosystems

Education

Ingénieur, 1975

Ecole Polytechnique
Ingénieur, 1977

Ecole du Génie Rural et des Eaux et Forêts
PhD in Oceanography, 1985

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research

Major research topics

Analysis of marine eukaryotic communities using metabarcoding (nuclear 18S rRNA, plastid 16S rRNA genes).
Diversity and oceanic distribution of marine phytoplankton, in particular green algae and pelagophytes.
Polar ohytoplankton communities and their adaptation to the long winter polar night.
Development of databases for the analysis of eukaryotic metabarcodes: PR2, pr2-primers and metaPR2 (in progress)

Current Collaborations

Bente Edvardsen and Wenche Eikrem, Oslo, Norway
Nicole Trefaut and Catherine Ribeiro-Gerikas, Santiago, Chile
Adriana Lopes dos Santos, Singapore
Andres Gutierrez Rodriguez, New Zealand

Projects

PhenoMap (2020-2023)

Characterize unknown phytoplankton species

RCC

Roscoff Culture Collection

PR2

18S rRNA sequence database

metaPR2

18S rRNA metabarcode database

Recent Publications

More publications

Towards a trait-based framework for protist ecology and evolution

We argue that a unified trait database for protists is timely, achievable, and would catalyze transformative research on their biodiversity, ecology and evolution.

Mahwash Jamy, Pierre Ramond, David Bass, Javier Del Campo, Micah Dunthorn, Enrique Lara, Aditee Mitra, Daniel Vaulot, Luciana Santoferrara

Trends in Microbiology, 2025

PDF Source Document

A novel taxonomic database for eukaryotic mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene (eKOI), with a focus on protists diversity

We introduce eKOI, a novel, curated COI gene database designed to enhance the taxonomic annotation for protists that can be used for COI-based metabarcoding.

Rubén González-Miguéns, Àlex Gàlvez-Morante, Margarita Skamnelou, Meritxell Antó, Elena Casacuberta, Daniel J Richter, Enrique Lara, Daniel Vaulot, Javier del Campo, Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo

ISME Communications, 5: ycaf075, 2025

PDF Source Document

Temporal dynamics and biogeography of sympagic and planktonic photosynthetic microbial eukaryotes during the under-ice Arctic bloom

We analyzed the phytoplankton dynamics during the under ice bloom both in the water and in the ice off Baffin island (Canada).

Clarence Wei Hung Sim, Catherine Ribeiro Gerikas, Florence Le Gall, Ian Probert, Priscilla Gourvil, Connie Lovejoy, Daniel Vaulot, Adriana Lopes dos Santos

ISME Communications, 5: ycaf075, 2025

PDF Project Source Document Supplementary material

The community of marine alveolate parasites in the Atlantic inflow to the Arctic Ocean is structured by season, depth, and water mass

We investigated the seasonal variability marine alveolate community structure in the Arctic Ocean west and north of Svalbard.

Elianne Egge, Daniel Vaulot, Aud Larsen, Bente Edvardsen

Arctic Science 11:1-16, 2025

PDF Project Source Document

Culturing Diatoms

A review on diatom culture.

Daniel Vaulot, Gust Bilcke, Peter Chaerle, Angela Falcatiore, Priscillia Gourvil, Michael W. Lomas, Ian Probert, Wim Vyverman

In Goessling, J., Serodio, J. & Lavaud, J. [Eds.] Diatom Photosynthesis: From Primary Production to High-Value Molecules. Wiley-Scrivener, pp. 409–48., 2024

PDF Project Source Document

Arctic phytoplankton microdiversity across the marginal ice zone: Subspecies vulnerability to sea-ice loss

We investigated the phytoplankton community structure across the marginal ice zone between the ice-free, Atlantic-influenced, east and the ice-covered, Arctic-influenced, west Baffin Bay using 18S rRNA high-throughput amplicon sequencing.

Catherine Ribeiro Gerikas, Adriana Lopes dos Santos, Nicole Trefault, Dominique Marie, Connie Lovejoy, Daniel Vaulot

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 2024

PDF Project Source Document Supplementary material