Endemic ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from tank bromeliads (Bromeliaceae): a combined morphological, molecular, and ecological study

At the turn of the millennium, Foissner et al. (2003) discovered a likely specific (endemic) ciliate fauna in tank bromeliads. Ciliates are single-celled organisms (protists) of microscopic size (~15–1000 μm), for instance, the widely known slipper animal (Paramecium). Bromeliads are a group of rosette plants of the Liliidae restricted to Central and South America. The “tanks” (= small bodies of water) are formed by the coalescing leaf axils which collect the rain water and plant litter. Since Picado (1913), it is known that bromelian tanks are inhabited by many specific organisms, now ranging from protists to frogs. Main objectives and perspectives of this project include: • To publish the taxonomic data accumulated and those obtained during a planed stay at Jamaica University. Likely, these are about 60 new ciliate species whose distribution willbe investigated at various spatial scales. This part of the project should firmly establish the specificity of the bromelian tank ciliate community and thus the occurrence of microorganisms with restricted geographic distribution. • To contribute to biodiversity of protists from a region of which very few is known. • Ecological research will focus on the functional ecology of some of the more common endemic tank ciliates and experiments for exploring the unusually high frequency of species which can switch between bacteriophagous microstomes and predaceous macrostomes. • To educate a young Jamaican scientist in classical and molecular alpha-taxonomy (= description of species), a specific discipline threatened to become extinct in Europe and the USA, at least as concerns heterotrophic, free-living protists.