Dataset for: Do marine planktonic ciliates follow Bergmann’s rule?

This is a dataset used for the paper entitled \"Do marine planktonic ciliates follow Bergmann’s rule?\" by Liu et al. This dataset includes the mean cell-size of ciliate community obtained from 282 samples from 154 stations covered from 20°S to 65°N. It also contains the biomass of ciliate community, the corresponding environmental parameters including seawater temperature and Chlorophyll a concentration (Chla), and the proxy for phytoplankton (prey) size estimated by two methods (see paper for details). , Samples for ciliate biomass and size were collected from each station and preserved with acidic Lugol’s solution (final concentration 5%). All samplesd were observed by inverted microscope. Dimensions were determined and volumes were calculated after each cell was assigned a geometrical shape. The equivalent spherical diameters (ESD) was calcuated for each ciliate and the geometric mean ESD was calcuated for each sample. 
Chlorophyll a concentration was determined by filtering 100 to 500 mL of seawater, following methods outlined by Welschmeyer (1994). The phytoplankton size was estimated by two methods: the phytoplankton size fractions based on the model of Ward (2016) and the phytoplankton mean size.
More details are in the paper \"Do marine planktonic ciliates follow Bergmann’s rule?\",