This paper first reviews the concept of functional diversity in general terms and then applies
it to free-living aquatic ciliates. Ciliates are extremely versatile organisms and display an …

Plankton ecologists ultimately focus on forecasting, both applied and environmental
outcomes. We review how appreciating planktonic ciliates has become central to these …

Ciliated protists represent one of the most primitive and diverse lineages of eukaryotes, with
nuclear dimorphism, a distinctive sexual process (conjugation), and extensive genome …

Taxonomy is the science of defining and naming groups of biological organisms based on
shared characteristics and, more recently, on evolutionary relationships. With the birth of …

The morphology, morphogenesis, and molecular phylogeny of Heterometopus palaeformis
(Kahl, 1927) Foissner, 2016 were studied using microscopical observations on live and …

Ciliates belonging to the class Plagiopylea are obligate anaerobes that are often neglected
due to their cryptic lifestyles, difficulty of observation, and overall under-sampling. Here, we …

Anaerobiosis has independently evolved in multiple lineages of ciliates, allowing them to
colonize a variety of anoxic and oxygen‐depleted habitats. Anaerobic ciliates commonly …

Abstract In the period 2011–2016, a series of investigations were carried out on the marine
and brackish free-living ciliate fauna of the temperate–tropical coastal waters of China …

Species of the ciliate genus Urotricha are key players in freshwater plankton communities. In
the pelagial of lakes, about 20 urotrich species occur throughout an annual cycle, some of …

Ciliates are single celled eukaryotes recognized as key players in the microbial loop of
aquatic ecosystems. The present study was carried out on the Krka River (Croatia), a karst …