Among the large cast of microbiome players, bacteria have long been hogging the spotlight. But the single-celled organisms known as protists are finally getting the starring role they deserve. "Even though protists are important and their relevance has been known for decades, our study is the first one showing an association of protists with plants in a large-scale field experiment," said project leader Mary Firestone, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Earth and Environmental Sciences Area and a professor at UC Berkeley. The project was a collaboration among scientists from Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the Noble Research Institute, and the University of Oklahoma.