Ciliates are important components in planktonic food webs, but our understanding of their community structures in different oceanic water masses is limited. We report pelagic ciliate community characteristics in three seas: the tropical West Pacific, the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Planktonic ciliate abundance had “bimodal-peak”, “surface-peak” and “DCM (deep chlorophyll a maximum layer)-peak” vertical distribution patterns in the tropical West Pacific, the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, respectively. The abundance proportion of tintinnid to total ciliate in the Bering Sea (42.6%) was higher than both the tropical West Pacific (7.8%) and the Arctic Ocean (2.0%). The abundance proportion of small aloricate ciliates (10–20 µm size-fraction) in the tropical West Pacific was highest in these three seas. The Arctic Ocean had higher abundance proportion of tintinnids in larger LOD (lorica oral diameter) size-class. Proportion of redundant species increased from the Arctic Ocean to the tropical West Pacific. Our result provided useful data to further understand ecology roles of planktonic ciliates in different marine habitats.

中文翻译：

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热带西太平洋，白令海和北冰洋的浮游纤毛虫群落的差异

纤毛虫是浮游食物网中的重要组成部分，但是我们对不同海洋水团中它们的群落结构的理解是有限的。我们报告了三个海洋中的浮游纤毛虫群落特征：热带西太平洋，白令海和北冰洋。浮游性纤毛虫的丰度具有“双峰峰”，“表面峰”和“ DCM（深叶绿素a最大层）-峰值”分别是热带西太平洋，白令海和北冰洋的垂直分布模式。白令海中丁丁腈对纤毛虫的丰度比例（42.6％）高于热带西太平洋（7.8％）和北冰洋（2.0％）。在这三个海中，热带西太平洋的小藻类纤毛虫的丰度比例（10－20 µm大小）。在较大的LOD（口径）中，北冰洋的丁丁鱼丰度比例较高。从北冰洋到热带西太平洋，多余物种的比例增加。我们的结果为进一步了解不同海洋生境中浮游纤毛虫的生态作用提供了有用的数据。