Protozoa and plant growth: the microbial loop in soil revisited

All nutrients that plants absorb have to pass a region of intense interactions between roots, microorganisms and animals, termed the rhizosphere. Plants allocate a great portion of their photosynthetically fixed carbon to root-infecting symbionts, such asmycorrhizal fungi; another part is released as exudates fuelling mainly free-living rhizobacteria. Rhizobacteria are strongly top-down regulated by microfaunal grazers, particularly protozoa. Consequently, beneficial effects of protozoa on plant growth have been assigned to nutrients released from consumed bacterial biomass, that is, the 'microbial loop'. In recent years however, the recognition of bacterial communication networks, the common exchange of…

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  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung