Phagotrophic Protists and Their Associates: Evidence for Preferential Grazing in an Abiotically Driven Soil Ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: The complex relationship between ecosystem function and soil food web structure is governed by species interactions, many of which remain unmapped. Phagotrophic protists structure soil food webs by grazing the microbiome, yet their involvement in intraguild competition, susceptibility to predator diversity, and grazing preferences are only vaguely known. These species-dependent interactions are contextualized by adjacent biotic and abiotic processes, and thus obfuscated by typically high soil biodiversity. Such questions may be investigated in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica because the physical environment strongly filters biodiversity and simplifies the influence of abiotic factors. To detect the potential interactions in the MDV, we analyzed the co-occurrence among shotgun m

SUBMITTER: Thompson AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8398437 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature