Soil protists: a fertile frontier in soil biology research

Soil protists: a fertile frontier in soil biology research.

Protists include all eukaryotes except plants, fungi and animals. They are an essential, yet often forgotten, component of the soil microbiome. Method developments have now furthered our understanding of the real taxonomic and functional diversity of soil protists. They occupy key roles in microbial foodwebs as consumers of bacteria, fungi and other small eukaryotes. As parasites of plants, ani...

Quest of Soil Protists in a New Era

The taxon Protista was originally given by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and included all unicellular organisms either prokaryotic or eukaryotic. In the modern view, the protists are eukaryotic organisms of unicellular organization, and thus the term embraces classical protozoa, unicellular phototrophic organisms such as diatoms, and lower unicellular fungi (28). Due to the extreme diversity, the taxon...

Soil Biology and Microbiology

Maternal obesity and fetal metabolic programming: a fertile epigenetic soil.

The incidence of obesity and overweight has reached epidemic levels in the United States and developed countries worldwide. Even more alarming is the increasing prevalence of metabolic diseases in younger children and adolescents. Infants born to obese, overweight, and diabetic mothers (even when normal weight) have increased adiposity and are at increased risk of later metabolic disease. In ad...

Visions of a more precise soil biology

O. ANDRÉN , H. KIRCHMANN , T. KÄTTERER , J. MAGID , E. A. PAUL & D. C. COLEMAN TSBF-CIAT, PO Box 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya, Department of Soil Sciences, PO Box 7014, SLU, S-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Bülowsvej 17, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark, NREL, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1499, USA, and Institute of Ecology, Ecology...