The present data compilation includes ciliates growth rate, grazing rate and gross growth efficiency determined either in the field or in laboratory experiments. From the existing literature, we synthesized all data that we could find on cilliate. Some sources might be missing but none were purposefully ignored. Field data on microzooplankton grazing are mostly comprised of grazing rate using the dilution technique with a 24h incubation period. Laboratory grazing and growth data are focused on pelagic ciliates and heterotrophic dinoflagellates. The experiment measured grazing or growth as a function of prey concentration or at saturating prey concentration (maximal grazing rate). When considering every single data point available (each measured rate for a defined predator-prey pair and a certain prey concentration) there is a total of 1485 data points for the ciliates, counting experiments that measured growth and grazing simultaneously as 1 data point.

This work was funded in part by the European project EUR-OCEANS, project number WP3.2-SYS-1092.

Supplement to: Sailley, Sevrine; Buitenhuis, Erik Theodoor (2014): Microzooplankton functional responses in the lab and in the field. Earth System Science Data Discussions, 7(1), 149-167