title: An approach to determining potential surrogates for analyzing ecological patterns of planktonic ciliate communities in marine ecosystems.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In order to identify a potential surrogate of planktonic ciliate communities for marine bioassessments and evaluating biological conservations, the different taxonomic/numerical resolutions and taxa as surrogates were studied in Jiaozhou Bay, northern China during a 1-year cycle (June 2007-May 2008).
  
  
  METHODS
  Samples were collected biweekly from a depth of 1 m at each of five sites. A range of physicochemical parameters were also measured in order to determine water quality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The genus- and family-level resolutions maintained sufficient information to evaluate the ecological patterns of the ciliate communities in response to environmental status. The non-loricate oligotrichous ciliate assemblages in both abundance and occurrence may be used as a surrogate of planktonic ciliate communities. Heavy data transformations were an optimal strategy for the species level of planktonic ciliates, while mild data transformations were for the higher. The ordination patterns based on species biomass, occurrence, and biomass/abundance ratio matrices were significantly consistent with that of species abundance data.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results suggest that the use of simplifications at both taxonomic and numerical resolutions are time-efficient and would allow improving sampling strategies of large spatial/temporal scale monitoring programs and biological conservation researches in the marine ecosystem with a relative paucity of scientists.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Protozoology, Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China. henglongxu@126.com
authors.forename: Henglong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Mingzhuang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Khaled A S
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Al-Rasheid
mesh_terms: D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000502:physiology; D018533:Biomass; D002681:China; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D010933:Plankton / Q000502:physiology*; D011157:Population Dynamics