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Soil protists are commonly suggested being solely bacterivorous, serving together with bacterivorous nematodes as the main controllers of the bacterial energy channel in soil food webs. In contrast, the fungal energy channel is assumed to be controlled by arthropods and mycophagous nematodes. This perspective accepted by most soil biologists is, however, challenged by functional studies conducted by taxonomists that revealed a range of mycophagous protists. In order to increase the knowledge on the functional importance of mycophagous protists we isolated and initiated cultures of protist taxa and tested eight for facultative feeding on diverse fungi in microcosm experiments. Two different flagellate species of the genus Cercomonas , the testate amoeba Cryptodifflugia operculata and four genera of naked amoebae ( Acanthamoeba sp., Leptomyxa sp., two Mayorella spp. and Thecamoeba spp.) fed and grew on yeasts with four taxa ( Cercomonas sp., Leptomyxa sp., Mayorella sp., and Thecamoeba sp.) also thriving on spores of the plant pathogenic hyphal-forming fungus Fusarium culmorum . To identify the potential importance of mycophagous protists in the environment we applied a data-mining approach targeting small subunit (SSU) rRNA data obtained in metatranscriptomes of five fundamentally different terrestrial samples. We focused our analyses on the distribution and relative abundances of two well-studied mycophagous protist groups, vampyrellid amoebae and grossglockneriid ciliates. Both groups were detected in all of the highly contrasting terrestrial samples, comprising up to 3% of all protist SSU rRNA transcripts. SSU transcripts of these two groups, in contrast to all remaining protist SSU transcripts, showed strong correlations with the relative abundance of fungal sequences indicating close direct trophic interactions. Taken together, this study provides evidence that mycophagy among soil protists is common and might be of substantial but hitherto overlooked ecological importance in terrestrial ecosystems. Future studies should aim at evaluating taxon-specific (facultative) mycophagy, decipher changes caused in the fungal community and quantitatively evaluate the functional importance of this trophic position in soil ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Soil food webs are important determinants for the carbon flow through terrestrial systems, with the trophic networks between microbes and microfaunal grazers forming the basis for processing plant resources. At an agricultural field site cropped with maize or wheat, plant carbon input to soil was experimentally manipulated by amendment with maize litter. The community structure of dominant micro-food web components, the bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes, was investigated across a depth gradient comprising plough layer, rooted soil below plough horizon, and deeper root free soil. The community composition and diversity within micro-food webs, and the response to resource supply, were assessed in summer, the vegetation period with highest root exudation. In the plough layer amendment with plant residues increased microbial biomass as well as density of fan shaped amoeba morphotypes and of bacterial- and fungal-feeding nematodes. Diversity of food web assemblages was assessed by operational taxonomic units (OTU) for bacteria and fungi, protozoa morphotypes and nematode families. Changes in diversity were either not apparent (fungi, protozoa), negatively related to litter (bacteria) or positively linked to the presence of a specific crop plant (bacteria, nematodes). Based on nematode functional guilds and the related enrichment and structure index, general food web conditions were assigned as nutrient enriched, with a high degree of disturbance, and a dominance of the bacterial energy channel. In sum, litter amendment fostered the abundance but not the diversity of organisms as food webs remained bottom heavy with only small amounts of carbon conserved at higher trophic levels. Food web structure was more affected by the abiotic (soil profile) and biotic (crop plant) environment than by the supply with litter resources. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]