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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 7404

Jeffrey D. Jack and John J. Gilbert; Effects of Metazoan Predators on Ciliates in Freshwater Plankton Communities. J.Eukaryot.Microbiol. 44(3):194-199, 1997

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Ciliates are often important members of aquatic communities in terms of their biomass, preductivity, trophic roles, or numerical abundance. The interaction of metazoan predators with ciliates will be mediated by a number of biotic factors, including the potential of ciliate populations for growth, the relative size of ciliates and metazooplankton, the species structure of the metazooplankton, and the defenses of ciliates. This paper reviews some of the recent laboratory an field data pertaining to these particular factors. Studies have generally shown that metazoans can reduce ciliate population growth rates, but this impact varies greatly with the ciliate and metazoans involved. Smaller ciliates are generally more vulnerable to metazoan predators than larger species, although this relationship will be affected by the defenses a ciliate may possess. The structure of the metazooplankton community itself will also affect ciliate-metazoan interactions. The suppression of ciliate populations by metazoans has important ecological consequences, and more study is needed to understand the interaction of these groups in aquatic systems.