Amoebas-bacteria interactions: evolution, ecology and environmental impacts

Abstract:

Amoebas are important components of terrestrial ecosystems, and play a key role in soil nutrient cycling and energy flow. Amoebas have complex relationships with bacteria. On one hand, amoebas can directly affect the bacterial community and diversity through predation and enhance bacterial activity. On the other hand, bacteria have also evolved mechanisms to resist predation and even to infect amoebas, thus adversely affecting the growth and diversity of amoebas. In recent years, the interactions between amoebas and bacteria have attracted much attention. This paper summarizes the evolutionary history of amoebas-bacteria interactions, ecological relationships (predation, commensalism, parasitism, and mutualism) and their potential impacts on the environment. This review will improve our understanding about this research field and provide new ideas for the study of other protists-bacteria interactions, as well as exploring the mechanism of host-bacteria interactions in general.

Key words:protist;amoeba;bacteria;host;prey;symbiosis;coevolution