Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Artículo científico |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
mSystems
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40815464/ |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
Table of Contents:
- Morphological and molecular analyses of season-specific responses of freshwater ciliate communities to top-down and bottom-up experimental manipulations. Asghar, Usman Mukherjee, Indranil Sonntag, Bettina Pires de Paula, Caio César Kasalický, Vojtěch Bulzu, Paul-Adrian Singh, Anusha Priya Shabarova, Tanja Piwosz, Kasia Šimek, Karel Seasons Ciliophora Fresh Water Food Chain Bacteria In aquatic microbial food webs, ciliates represent an important trophic link in the energy transfer from prokaryotes, algae, and heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNFs) to higher trophic levels. However, the trophic role of abundant small ciliates ( Ciliates represent an important trophic link in aquatic microbial food webs. In this study, we used the food web manipulation techniques to reveal their complex trophic interactions during seasonally different plankton scenarios occurring in spring and summer. Manipulating top-down controlling factors (grazing pressure of micro- and metazooplankton grazers) and bottom-up factors (an availability of bacterial prey) shaped distinctly the complexity and dynamics of natural plankton communities and thus yielded significant changes in ciliate community dynamics. The experimentally simplified plankton and ciliate communities responded to our manipulations in season-specific fashions, reflected in different roles of ciliates as an intermediate trophic link between prokaryotes and higher trophic levels. This study also demonstrates that the combination of molecular and morphological analyses is essential to gain more realistic insights into the structure of ciliate community and for providing robust, ecologically meaningful results.