Ciliated microeukaryotes (Alveolata: Ciliophora) of a lotic urban system located in Minas Gerais - Brazil

摘要

The phylum Ciliophora is organized in 14 classes with ~8,000 described species (Gao et al., 2016). Among unicellular microeukaryotes, ciliates are the most specialized, diversified and with the highest complexity in terms of cellular organization (Puytorac, 1994). They typically occupy basal trophic levels and display a wide geographical distribution occurring in almost all environments such as marine, fresh and brackish waters, and also in edaphic systems like soils, mosses and lichens (Lynn, 2008).