Ciliophora
Geographic and vertical distribution

Not much is known about the biogeography of marine aloricate ciliates. Since many specimens become lost or severely distorted in traditionally fixed plankton samples (see Ci. 3 Sample preparation and analysis), they usually cannot be identified. The limited data available show that the ciliate community is often dominated numerically by oligotrichs of the genus Strombidium (e.g., Beers et al., 1971; Mamaeva, 1984a,b, 1986; Tumantseva and Kopylov, 1985). The distribution of the species recorded in the South Atlantic Ocean is given in Ci. table 2a , and Ci. table 2b.