Protistan Predators Outshine Fungi in Forest Soil Activity

Abstract

Despite extensive research on fungal communities in forest soils, our understanding of the whole eukaryotic diversity and distribution remains limited. Moreover, traditional amplicon sequencing methods often introduce severe PCR and primer biases, further hindering accurate assessment of the microbial community composition in forest soils. To address these challenges, this study used a public metatranscriptomic data set to analyze 51 forest soil samples comprising four countries (Canada, France, Spain, and Sweden). Our results reveal that Arcellinida, a eukaryotic order of shell-bearing amoebae, represent the most abundant eukaryotic taxon in forest soils, with an average relative abundance of 12.6%. This finding challenges the conventional view that fungi dominate eukaryotic diversity in these ecosystems. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that Arcellinida (R² = 0.066, p = 0.006) and soil pH (R² = 0.126, p < 0.001) are key biological and environmental drivers, respectively, shaping the composition of eukaryotic communities in forest soils, suggesting distinct impact on the microbial community through predation. These findings offer novel insights into the ecological significance of microbial eukaryotes in forest ecosystems and provide a new framework for investigating the predatory dynamics centered on Arcellinida in forest soil microbial networks.