Micropredator niche differentiation in soil. soil metagenome

Predation is the most important interaction in all food webs, but its key drivers and routes are still poorly understood at the microbial level. Specifically, understanding predatory carbon flows in the presence of multiple micropredators is important to elucidate multitrophic interactions in microbial food webs. Here, using an agricultural soil as a model system, we aimed to investigate the predation of amended bacterial prey by different micropredators, including predatory bacteria and eukaryotic micropredators, and how the habitat (soil compartment) and the nature of prey (e.g. Gram-positive vs. Gram-negative) influence predation.This study provides novel insights into micropredator niche differentiation in soil, which improves our current understanding of trophic links in microbial food webs, and thereby carbon fluxes in soil.