Protozoan Communities: Marine Habitats

Abstract

To most ecologists the term “biotic community” means an assemblage of species populations delimited in time and space within which the populations interact. In practice it is not possible to use a very strict or precise definition of communities when discussing taxonomically defined assemblages in nature. It is obviously necessary to include prey, predators, and competing species which are not protozoa. On the other hand, it is likely that many protozoan populations which occur together in time and space interact only weakly or not at all. Thus the largest and the smallest protozoan species of many habitats are not likely to engage directly in prey-predator relationships or to compete for common resources and any possible ecological interactions will be weak and indirect. Also the spatial and temporal boundaries of biotic communities are rarely, if ever, sharply defined.