The Hidden Diversity of Flagellated Protists in Soil

Protists are among the most diverse and abundant eukaryotes in soil. However, gaps between described and sequenced protist morphospecies still present a pending problem when surveying environmental samples for known species using molecular methods. The number of sequences in the molecular PR2 database (∼130,000) is limited compared to the species richness expected (>1 million protist species) - limiting the recovery rate. This is important,...