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Ciliates in Planktonic Food Webs: Communication and Adaptive Response

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Biocommunication of Ciliates

Abstract

Ciliates are key elements of aquatic food webs, acting as predators of bacteria, algae, other protists and even some metazoans. Planktonic ciliates are important food for zooplankton, and mixotrophic and functionally autotrophic species may significantly contribute to primary production in lakes and in the ocean. Ciliates are linked to other plankton organisms and to abiotic parameters by various direct (e.g., predation and parasitism) and indirect (e.g., nutrient release via excretion, competition for food) interactions. Communication is involved in many of those interactions, but direct evidence from the field is scarce. This is mainly because aquatic ciliates live in a dilute environment and most species occur in low cell numbers. Key processes of chemical and hydromechanical communication among ciliates, between ciliates and their predators and prey, and between ciliates and their endosymbionts have been studied in some detail in vitro. Results from microcosm experiments suggest that ciliates also cooperate with each other and use information mediated by different other organisms. Extrapolating those results obtained in small-scale laboratory experiments to the ocean level is a major challenge for future research. To this end, more communication and cooperation is needed between cell biologists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists. In contrast to communication, adaptations of natural ciliate populations to their abiotic and biotic environment have been well documented in selected freshwater and marine species. The effect of individual environmental variables and, less often, the interactive effect of several variables on growth and survival rates of ciliates have been studied with a number of ciliate species in the laboratory and inferred from their seasonal occurrence in the field. However, more information is needed on the autecology of free-living ciliate species and their role in the planktonic community. In particular, the significance of indirect (‘lateral’) effects in the food web received little attention and awaits future research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Research Institute for Limnology, Mondseestrasse 9, 5310, Mondsee, Austria

    Thomas Weisse & Bettina Sonntag

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  1. Thomas Weisse
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  2. Bettina Sonntag
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Correspondence to Bettina Sonntag .

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  1. Telos- Philosophische Praxis, Buermoos, Salzburg, Austria

    Guenther Witzany

  2. Institut für Zellbiologie, Universität Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Mariusz Nowacki

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Weisse, T., Sonntag, B. (2016). Ciliates in Planktonic Food Webs: Communication and Adaptive Response. In: Witzany, G., Nowacki, M. (eds) Biocommunication of Ciliates. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32211-7_19

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