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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 1720

R.D. Hamilton and Janet E. Preslan; Observations on the continuous culture of a planktonic phagotrophic protozoan. J.exp.mar.Biol.Ecol. 5:94-104, 1970

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The continuous culture of a marine ciliate, Uronema sp., is described. This phagotroph was fed suspensions of a marine bacterium (Serratia marinorubra) which were maintained in a resting state. In this simplified system, where no growth of the prey could occur, the protozoan growth rate, population level, and the level of the prey in the chemostat obeyed the classical chemostat equations over a wide range of incoming prey concentrations. However, at low protozoan concentrations some factor besides food concentration became limiting. Consequently, wash-out occurred at food levels which, theoretically, should have produced a steady state. Additional observations suggest that yield, when based upon cell numbers, is a constant but when based upon carbon may be a variable.