Ref ID : 7904
A.I. Azovskiy; Taxonomic Relationships, Morphological and Ecological Similarities of Marine Psammophilous Ciliates. Hydrobiological Journal 27(1):1-12, 1991 (Originally published in Zoologicheskiy zhurnal 69(5):5-16, 1990)
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Relationships between taxonomic affinity and morphological and ecological similarities in a White Sea community of common species of psammophilous ciliates are examined. Body length, volume, and an elongation index (ratio of body length to spherical equivalent of diameter) were used as morphological characters. For ecological parameters, we used breadth and overlap of trophic, spatial, and temporal niches. The general relationship between ciliate size, size of their prey, and parameters of their trophic niches is weakly expressed and does not fit the theoretical model of Schoener and MacArthur. The ecological and morphological differences among the species do not correlate well; this hinders morphological identification of the ciliate niches. The niches of the species of a single genus overlap, on average, more strongly than do the niches of the sum total of species; however, these differences are statistically insignificant. Using taxonomic and morphological characters to describe and analyze the niche structure of local communities is viewed as highly doubtful.