Ciliates are a common but understudied group of grazers that can invade microalgal cultures. To estimate the potential impact of ciliates on microalgal culture productivity, the identification of species that can invade these cultures is essential. Furthermore, isolation of these herbivorous ciliates allows to use them in experiments that investigate the impact of ciliate grazing on the productivity of microalgal cultures. The main aims of this study were to isolate and identify ciliates that invade cultures of the freshwater microalgae Chlorella and Chlamydomonas, and to establish a live collection of these ciliates for usage in future experiments. To this end, we optimized a method for isolating ciliates from contaminated microalgal cultures and we developed a new PCR primer set for amplifying the partial 18S rDNA of ciliates belonging to the classes Spirotrichea, Oligohymenophorea and Colpodea. As a result, we isolated 11 ciliates from microalgal enrichment cultures inoculated with non-sterile dust and various freshwater sources. Of these 11 species, 7 were found to be feeding on Chlamydomonas. Ciliate species that fed on Chlorella could not be isolated in this study. Ciliate species feeding on Chlamydomonas were identified based on a combination of morphological observations and molecular analyses of partial 18S rDNA sequences.

纤毛虫是一种常见但未被充分研究的食草动物，可以侵入微藻培养物。要评估纤毛虫对微藻培养物生产力的潜在影响，必须确定可以侵入这些培养物的物种。此外，这些草食性纤毛虫的分离允许将其用于研究纤毛虫放牧对微藻培养物生产力的影响的实验中。这项研究的主要目标是分离和识别侵入淡水微藻培养纤毛虫小球藻及衣，并建立这些纤毛的实时收集，以供将来的实验中使用。为此，我们优化了从受污染的微藻培养物中分离纤毛的方法，并开发了一种新的PCR引物组，用于扩增纤毛虫的部分18S rDNA，这些纤毛属于螺旋藻，少毛虫科和Colpodea类。结果，我们从接种了非无菌粉尘和各种淡水的微藻富集培养物中分离出11个纤毛。在这11个物种中，发现有7个以衣藻为食。这项研究无法分离出以小球藻为食的纤毛虫。以衣藻为食的纤毛虫 基于形态学观察和部分18S rDNA序列的分子分析相结合，确定了这些蛋白。