Redescription of Psilotricha acuminata Stein, 1859 and revisions of the genera Psilotricha and Urospinula (Ciliophora, Hypotrichida).

Psilotricha acuminata was described by Stein in 1859 as the type species of the ciliate genus Psilotricha Stein, 1859. The ciliate has rarely been found since, and its infraciliature has never been described with the aid of silver-impregnation techniques. We have found P. acuminata Stein, 1859 in soil samples from upland grassland in Scotland (U.K.). Living and healthy organisms of P. acuminata are oblong in outline, and dorso-ventrally compressed. They closely resemble ciliates of the genus Euplotes. The main morphological features used for identification of P. acuminata are the very long and sparse cirri, and the two macronuclei. When the ciliate crawls, the cirri appear stiff and directed backwards. Specimens observed from the ventral side have a protruding anterior end, a rounded or acuminate posterior pole, and a "beak-like" projection to the left side of the posterior end. The ciliate shares characters with the Euplotidae (body shape and reduced ciliature) and with the Oxytrichidae (marginal rows, macronuclei, reduced number of transverse cirri). Because the arrangement of the silver-impregnated infraciliature was unknown, and as the only description of the ciliate was that of Stein (1859a, b), the genus Psilotricha became confused with other hypotrich genera, especially Urospinula Corliss, 1960. Here we provide a full redescription of P. acuminata based on living and silver-impregnated specimens, and a revision of the genera Psilotricha Stein, 1859 and Urospinula Corliss, 1960. We resurrect the genus Urospinula, and give an emended diagnosis for both genera. The species now included within the genus Psilotricha are P. acuminata Stein, 1859 (type species); Psilotricha viridis (Penard, 1922) Kahl, 1932; and Psilotricha geleii (Gelei, 1954) Stiller, 1974. Psilotricha viridis sensu Kahl, 1932 and Psilotricha dragescoi Grolière, 1975 are considered incertae sedis.

Exploring Leeuwenhoek's legacy: the abundance and diversity of protozoa.

Towards the end of the 17th century, Leeuwenhoek built "magnifying glasses" that enabled him to see and describe protozoa for the first time. Continued exploration of the natural history of protozoa during the past 300 years has progressed far beyond simply documenting morphospecies (global total probably <20,000). We now realize that protozoan 'biodiversity' is multi-faceted (e.g. sibling species, variant genotypes and syntrophic consortia). Realization of their extraordinary abundance has secured for protozoa the position of dominant phagotrophs and regenerators of nutrients within microbial food webs. And studies of protozoa in the natural environment have done much to effect a paradigm shift in our understanding of why specific microbes live where they do and how they got there in the first place. In particular, the hypothesis of ubiquitous dispersal of protozoan species does seem to be supported by the evidence provided by morphospecies, sibling species and even individual genotypes.

Biodiversity of terrestrial protozoa appears homogeneous across local and global spatial scales.

Free-living microbes are by far the most abundant group of organisms in the biosphere, yet estimates of global species richness remain nebulous, and there is no consensus regarding the likely geographical distribution of species. Both uncertainties are addressed by the suggestion that the vast abundance of microbes may drive their ubiquitous random dispersal; for this would also make it likely that global species richness is relatively low. Here we test the idea of ubiquitous dispersal of testate amoebae and ciliates living in soil. We analysed their abundance and species richness in 150 soil samples collected from the one-hectare grassland site at Sourhope in Scotland, and in comparable published data from 1500 soil samples collected worldwide. Following taxonomic revision and removal of synonyms, there remained a total of 186 taxa (91 testate and 95 ciliate) recorded from both Sourhope and other places in the world. A fundamental pattern of random spatial distribution of species was revealed in species that are relatively rare. This probably arises from random dispersal, for when localised population growth occurs, the distributions become aggregated, as in virtually all metazoan species. We find no evidence for geographically-restricted protozoan morphospecies at spatial scales of 4 m2, 10,000 m2, or worldwide. Species that are locally rare or abundant are similarly rare or abundant on a global scale. Approximately one third of the global diversity of soil protozoa was found at the one-hectare grassland site in Scotland, but this is a minimum figure, for recorded species richness is proportional to sampling effort, as shown here.

Estimating the growth potential of the soil protozoan community.

We have developed a method for determining the potential abundance of free-living protozoa in soil. The method permits enumeration of four major functional groups (flagellates, naked amoebae, testate amoebae, and ciliates) and it overcomes some limitations and problems of the usual 'direct' and 'most probable number' methods. Potential abundance is determined using light microscopy, at specific time intervals, after quantitative re-wetting of air-dried soil with rain water. No exogenous carbon substrates or mineral nutrients are employed, so the protozoan community that develops is a function of the resources and inhibitors present in the original field sample. The method was applied to 100 soil samples (25 plots x 4 seasons) from an upland grassland (Sourhope, Southern Scotland) in the UK. Median abundances for all four functional groups lie close to those derived from the literature on protozoa living in diverse soil types. Flagellates are the most abundant group in soil, followed by the naked amoebae, then the testate amoebae and ciliates. This order is inversely related to typical organism size in each group. Moreover, preliminary evidence indicates that each functional group contains roughly the same number of species. All of these observations would be consistent with soil having fractal structure across the size-scale perceived by protozoa. The method described will be useful for comparing the effects on the soil protozoan community of different soil treatments (e.g. liming and biocides).

Protozoan diversity: converging estimates of the global number of free-living ciliate species.

Protozoa are the most abundant phagotrophs in the biosphere, but no scientific strategy has emerged that might allow accurate definition of the dimensions of protozoan diversity on a global scale. We have begun this task by searching for the common ground between taxonomy and ecology. We have used two methods - taxonomic analysis, and extrapolation from ecological datasets - to estimate the global species richness of free-living ciliated protozoa in the marine interstitial and freshwater benthos. The methods provide estimates that agree within a factor of two, and it is apparent that the species-area curves for ciliates must be almost flat (the slope z takes the very low value of 0.043 in the equation: [number of species] = [constant][area](z)). Insofar as independent ecological datasets can be extrapolated to show similiar, flat, species-area relations, and that these converge with an independent estimate from taxonomic analysis, we conclude that the great majority of freeliving ciliates are ubiquitous. This strengthens our recent claim that the global species richness of free-living ciliated protozoa is relatively low (∼3000).

Planktonic ciliate species diversity as an integral component of ecosystem function in a freshwater pond.

A diverse and dynamic community of ciliated protozoa lives in the stratified water column of the productive freshwater pond known as 'Priest Pot'. As part of a long-term continuous monitoring programme, this community was examined with 10 cm-scale vertical sampling in August 1995 and June 1997, and found to be dominated by species with endosymbiotic algae (1995), or by a quite different set of species, feeding on the dinoflagellate Peridinium (1997). On both occasions, the community structure was comprehensible in terms of the preceding sequence of reciprocal interactions involving microbiological, physical and chemical factors (e.g. oxygen depletion, thermal gradient, essential nutrient concentrations). In this one pond, very different ciliate communities appear at different times, yet each community may be nothing more than a transient bi-product of dynamic ecosystem functions. The facility with which the ciliate community (or any other microbial community) transforms in a continuously changing environment probably depends on a large local diversity of rare and encysted species and the rapidity with which these species fill vacant niches.