Diversity of Free-Living Protozoa

Abstract

Single-celled creatures are known as protozoa. They range in size and shape from amoebas, which can vary in their shape, to parameciums, which have sophisticated structures and a fixed shape. They inhabit many different types of moist habitats, such as freshwater, saltwater, and soil. In order to make nutrients usable by plants and other soil organisms, protozoa play a crucial role in the mineralization of minerals. Because of their widespread nature, protozoa can withstand a broad variety of physicochemical conditions, such as salinity, pH, temperature, and oxygen concentration. Instead of being dispersed randomly, they reside in tiny areas called microhabitats, which can be as small as a few cubic centimeters, found in moist environments like soil, vegetation, or the bodies of plants and animals. The free-living protozoan’s communities are highly diverse, the protozoan’s communities of the water and soil in Tigris river were predominantly ciliates which comprise the highest number of species and number of individual within the groups of protozoa.

Keywords

• free-living, protozoa, amoeba, flagellate, ciliate, sporozoan