Report of suctorian ciliates (Ciliophora, Suctorea) as epibionts on meiobenthic nematodes in an oxygen minimum zone of the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean

Abstract

Three suctorian ciliate species, Paracineta livadiana (Mereschkowsky, 1881), Loricophrya bosporica Sergeeva & Dovgal, 2014 and Acinetopsis lynni Baldrighi et al., 2020 are found as epibionts on meiobenthic nematodes in an oxygen minimum zone of the Arabian Sea. All three species are recorded here for the first time from the Indian Ocean.