A checklist of suctorian epibiont ciliates (Ciliophora) found on meiobenthic marine nematodes

The Cost for Biodiversity: Records of Ciliate–Nematode Epibiosis with the Description of Three New Suctorian Species

“…Secca delle Fumose belongs to the degassing structure offshore of the Campi Flegrei caldera and its biology and ecology has been investigated only recently [28,29]. We reported also several new records of peritrich and suctorian ciliates-nematode association worldwide, providing an update of the check-list presented by Chatterjee et al [27]. In the light of these new records and the literature data, we discussed the suctorian -nematode epibiosis relationship as a lever to biodiversity.…”

“…The specimen belonged to the genus Pseudochromadora (Desmodoridae) and a total of 19 putative phoronts of Apostomatia (Oligohymenophorea, Ciliophora) were attached to the nematode along the entire length of its body. This was the first finding of phoronts of Apostomatia as epibionts on nematode and neither in the recent review by Chatterjee et al [27] mentioned the representative of Apostomatia was as a nematode epibiont.…”

“…Trematosoma rotunda and Paracineta homari were the two epibiont suctorian species on Desmodora sp., they were found attached to the middle and tail/cloaca region (P. homari) and in the head region (T. rotunda) from 1 to 4 individuals. T. rotunda was already reported as epibiont on Desmodora scaldensis (Supplementary Material, Table S1A; [45]) inhabiting a mangrove system in India, while the suctorian species Paracineta homari (Supplementary Material, Figure S1A) was reported for the first time as ciliate epibiont on nematodes [27].…”

“…ciliates were found on specimens of three nematode genera: Desmodora, Spirinia (Desmodoridae) and Desmoscolex (Desmoscolecidae) ( Table 2; Supplementary Material, Figure S2A) in a number of 1 to 6 along the entire body length or on the tail region. The associations Desmoscolex-L. bosporica and Spirinia-Cothurnia were not new (Supplementary Material Table S1; [27]). Differently, the associations Desmodora-L. bosporica (Supplementary Material, Figure S2B) and Desmodora-P. homari (see above) were reported for the first time in the present study.…”

“…Both concepts suggest ecological functions [2,3]. Epibiosis is a common phenomenon in marine systems and can be considered a direct consequence of surface limitation and/or a wave In a recent study based on published records, Chatterjee et al [27] provided a checklist of suctorian epibionts on meiobenthic marine nematodes. Despite the amount of data presented from different geographical zones and types of environments, this phenomenon is still largely underestimated and the nematode-ciliate association might be more common than it actually appears to be.…”