Towards the end of the 17th century, Leeuwenhoek built "magnifying glasses" that enabled him to see and describe protozoa for the first time. Continued exploration of the natural history of protozoa during the past 300 years has progressed far beyond simply documenting morphospecies (global total probably <20,000). We now realize that protozoan 'biodiversity' is multi-faceted (e.g. sibling species, variant genotypes and syntrophic consortia). Realization of their extraordinary abundance has secured for protozoa the position of dominant phagotrophs and regenerators of nutrients within microbial food webs. And studies of protozoa in the natural environment have done much to effect a paradigm shift in our understanding of why specific microbes live where they do and how they got there in the first place. In particular, the hypothesis of ubiquitous dispersal of protozoan species does seem to be supported by the evidence provided by morphospecies, sibling species and even individual genotypes.

中文翻译：

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探索吕伐霍克的遗产：原生动物的丰富和多样性。

在17世纪末，Leeuwenhoek建造了“放大镜”，使他第一次能够看到和描述原生动物。在过去的300年中，对原生动物自然历史的持续探索已经远远超出了仅记录形态物种的范围（全球总数可能<20,000）。现在，我们认识到原生动物的“生物多样性”是多方面的（例如，同胞物种，变异基因型和同养性联合体）。它们的非凡丰富性的实现已为原生动物确保了微生物食物网中主要的吞噬菌和营养物质再生剂的位置。在自然环境中对原生动物的研究在很大程度上改变了我们对特定微生物为何生活在何处以及它们如何到达那里的理解上的范式转变。特别是，