Biodiversity of free-living ciliates of the Kura River basin (within Azerbaijan)

As a result of long therm free-living ciliates investigation of the Kura River basin, in all 308 species have been noted. The article provides information on the ciliates species diversity of 8 sample points, across the Kura River within Azerbaijan – from Georgian state border to the delta. The freshwater ciliates species diversity varies considerably depending on location and environment sample points. The greatest diversity of freshwater ciliates noted in Mingechevir and Varvara reservoirs (128 and 140 species respectively), which in our opinion, is related with a variety of biotopes in these reservoirs and an abundance of food organisms. The analysis on the occurrence of ciliates showed that the group of dominants (noted in more than 80 % of all samples) includes 10.71 % of the total species diversity, and the group of regular ones (occurrence less than 80, but more than 50 %) 13.60 % of the entire species composition, 71.47 % belong to the largest group of irregular ones (occurrence from 30 to 50 % in samples), and 4.22 % of the total species diversity to the group of random species (occurrence less than 30 % of all samples). It has been established that the largest group of irregular species is consist ciliates, confined to a certain time of the year – mainly in spring and fall. At the same time, part of this group species appeared in the communities only in the summer.

Faunistic study on the freshwater ciliates from Delhi, India

The ciliated protist communities show richness as well as uniqueness. This is true both for aquatic and soil ciliates. Delhi region lies in the subtropical semi-arid zone wherein the temperatures are highest in May-June and lowest in January. It also receives its monsoonal rainfall during the month of July-August. Thus, the region offers ideal conditions for the growth and proliferation of aquatic living beings. During the past three decades, a series of investigation has been carried out on the freshwater free-living ciliate fauna from fourteen sites at the river Yamuna and different freshwater bodies in Delhi. Samples were brought to the laboratory, ciliates were identified using live-cell observations and silver staining methods. A large number of Spirotrich species and a lower proportion belonging to class Heterotrichea, Litostomaea, Phyllopharyngea, Oligohymenophorea, Prostomatea, and Colpodea were identified. A total of 55 species belonging to 7 classes, 16 orders, 26 families, 40 genera were identified and documented. Ciliate diversity was found to be highest in the water sample from Okhla bird sanctuary (OBS). All ciliate species recorded during the present study have been listed and their general characteristics have been discussed.

Ultrastructures of Epibiotic Suctorian, Tokophrya huangmeiensis

Tokophrya species are either free-living or facultative ectosymbiotic suctorians associated with copepods, isopods, mysids, decapods and amphipods. Tokophrya huangmeiensis in particular is found to be epizoic with the redclaw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus Von Martens, 1868, which has been observed as part of an ongoing investigation of freshwater ciliates biodiversity in Huanggang, Hubei, China (Tahir et al. 2017). This first study on T. huangmeiensis based on morphological features using light microscopy and small subunit ribosomal DNA sequence (Tahir et al. 2017), suggested that more detailed descriptions on the physiological and structural changes of this species should be done. Thus, in this study, we looked at the ultrastructures of T. huangmeiensis using electron microscopy, including both scanning (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).