Abstract
Copepods are the most numerous metazoans in water-filled phytotelmata formed by Heliconia and Calathea floral bracts in cloud forests of Cordillera de la Costa, Northern Venezuela. We estimated the potential effect of copepods on ciliate community structure in this habitat with a laboratory experiment. Predation effects of five life stages of a harpacticoid copepod on a mixed culture of five bacterivorous ciliate species were measured during a 48-hour incubation. The predation effect depended on copepod life stage and on ciliate prey species. The abundances of Colpoda inflata, Tetrahymena pyriformis, and Colpidium kleini were significantly reduced, the actual effect strongly depending on copepod developmental stage. No detectable predation was observed on Paramecium aurelia or Tachysoma pellionellum. The results suggest that predation by harpacticoid copepods is an important factor influencing ciliate community structure in phytotelmata.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
