Table 2.

The abundance of two ciliate morphotypes containing epibiotic bacteria compared to total protistan cells.

	Urania halocline	Discovery halocline	Cariaco basin
Ciliates with visible epibonts (104 cells L−1)	0.97 (±0.2)	1.16 (±0.2)	1.4 (±0.7)
Total protistan cells (104 cells L−1)	1.82 (±0.6)	1.98 (±0.25)	31.2 (±0.2)

The abundance of two ciliate morphotypes present in Urania (see Figures 1D–F and 3C,D) and Discovery (see Figures 2A–E and 3A,B) haloclines, the Cariaco Basin (see Figures 1A–C), and total protists as determined by DAPI enumeration.