Eat Prey, Love? Diverse Soil Cercozoa Tell Tales of Climate Change

Abstract

The enormous species diversity of Cercozoa, important soil protozoans that feed on bacteria there, might provide a means for following climate change trends, according to Flemming Ekelund at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his collaborators. Thus, as soil dries with the changes in climate, species composition within the Cercozoa will also likely change, affecting further decomposition within this environmental niche, they say. Meanwhile, high-throughput sequencing of genomic material from soil samples can be used to follow protozoan predators and their prey. Details appeared 8 March 2016 in The ISME Journal (doi:10.1038/ismej.2016.31).