Freshwater bacteria are at the hub of biogeochemical cycles and control water quality in
lakes. Despite this, little is known about the identity and ecology of functionally significant …

Why do bacteria have shape? Is morphology valuable or just a trivial secondary
characteristic? Why should bacteria have one shape instead of another? Three broad …

Predation in aquatic microbial food webs is dominated by phagotrophic protists, yet these
microorganisms are still understudied compared to bacteria and phytoplankton. In pelagic …

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 …

The oxic realms of freshwater and marine environments are zones of high prokaryotic
mortality. Lysis by viruses and predation by ciliated and flagellated protists result in the …

Predation by bacterivorous protists in aquatic habitats can influence the morphological
structure, taxonomic composition and physiological status of bacterial communities. The …

Predation is a major mortality factor of planktonic bacteria and an important shaping force for
the phenotypic and taxonomic structure of bacterial communities. In this paper we:(1) …

The fact that bacteria have different shapes is not surprising; after all, we teach the concept
early and often and use it in identification and classification. However, why bacteria should …

We constructed an experimental model system to study the effects of grazing by a common
soil amoeba, Acanthamoeba castellanii, on the composition of bacterial communities in the …

Bacterioplankton from a meso-eutrophic dam reservoir was size fractionated to reduce (< 0.8-
μm treatment) or enhance (< 5-μm treatment) protistan grazing and then incubated in situ for …