Lack of ciliate community integrity in transitional waters: A case study from the Baltic Sea

Abstract The Baltic Sea, one of the world's largest brackish water environments, is particularly suitable for studies aiming to understand biodiversity in saltwater–freshwater mixing zones, i.e., transitional waters at different spatial and temporal scales. To evaluate diversity fluctuations in the pelagic microbial communities experiencing frequent brackish water intrusions, we analyzed seasonal dynamics of ciliates inhabiting transitional waters of the Curonian Lagoon. During the intrusion periods, the community presented a mixture of fresh- and brackish taxa, with no specific autochthonous component unique to the transitional waters. In the plume area, outside of the lagoon, we found that (i) high biodiversity was due to mixing of two distinct assemblages, and (ii) freshwater taxa are rather resistant to salinity change, their abundance decreases almost linearly with the increasing salinity, following conservative mixing model. Small unidentified Lohmanniella occurring exclusively in the plume zone during our survey possibly presents an autochthonous component based on locally available resource. Also mixed assemblage of the plume is characterized by absence of large predatory ciliate species.