Soil protists — the invisible engines of ecosystems

Discoveries of protists

Alongside bacteria, protists were among the first microorganisms to be discovered and observed with early microscopes in the 17th century by pioneers of microscopic biology. Yet, soil protists have long been a scientific blind spot in soil (micro)biology. This is now changing. Advances in molecular and imaging technologies allow us to explore where soil microorganisms thrive, what they do in soil and how they drive key soil processes. Thus, environmental scientists call the 21st century ‘the era of the microbe’ (e.g. Maloy & Schaechter 2006, Eren & Banfield 2024).

Protists are invisible to the naked eye. They are mainly microscopic, single-celled organisms, generally larger than bacteria and fungi, with most protists ranging in size from a few microns up to 1 millimetre. Despite their small size, they can be extremely abundant (see e.g. Geisen et al., 2017 or FAO, ITPS, GSBI, SCBD and EC, 2020).

Would you like to see protists, specifically amoebae, in action under the microscope? Then watch the video “Fight of the Amoebae”, which is part of the Soilwatching series. The video is approximately 4 minutes long and was produced by Fredrik Klinghammer and Edith Hammer from Lund University (external content).