Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Abandoned Larvacean Houses: A Unique Food Source in the Pela
2
Food Web Dependence on Larvacean Reject Mucus
Abandoned Larvacean Houses:
A Unique Food Source in the Pelagic Environment
The Mucus homes are the middle man
As a major metazoan link
between the nannoplankton-tiny, one celled phytoplankters -and the larger planktonic and neritic animals of the ocean, they are central to many marine
Larvaceans use mucus to eat
Larvaceans filter out nannoplankton
through a unique feeding structure, the "house," secreted around the animal by the oikoplast epithelium of the body
Clogged...again-_-
The mucus clogs easily and thus concentrates the plankton in feeding entrances and in the mucus net. Common species have been known to replace the homes every two to four hours.
And now for the fun stuff!
Findings
Abandoned house filters contain
naked dinoflagellates, coccolithophores,
unidentified organic particles, and a
few diatoms, silicoflagellates, and tintinnids.
An examination of the copepod
fecal pellets revealed coccolith
fragments and unidentified organic matter.
While feeding, 0. mediterranea
rests on the surface of the house and
uses its first and second maxilla and
maxillipeds to scoop particle-laden
mucus toward the mouth. No specific
food selectivity was observed, although
copepods tend to prefer the inner
particle-collecting apparatus, which
contains smaller particles than the outer
incurrent filters.
The copepods in the larvacean dishes pooped more than those of the control group, suggesting the use of the mucus homes for food.
It all comes down to the copepod poop!
A control group was set up along with other groups in which copepods were with cleaned larvacean homes.
By eye-count the poop was observed between the two groups and a total of 60 dishes, and a total of 200 starved copepods.
Abandoned Larvacean Houses: A Unique Food Source in the Pelagic Environment
Alice L. Alldredge
Science
New Series, Vol. 177, No. 4052 (Sep. 8, 1972) , pp. 885-887
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1734798
Take it to the Next Level...Copepods
What was that?
Got ya!
This study reports direct field and laboratory observations of copepods feeding on the clogged filters of abandoned larvacean houses in the
open ocean.