Abstract
The feeding behavior of the cosmopolitan cold-water coral (CWC) Desmophyllum dianthus (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) is still poorly known. Its usual deep distribution restricts direct observations, and manipulative experiments are so far limited to prey that do not occur in CWC natural habitat. During a series of replicated incubations, we assessed the functional response of this coral feeding on a medium-sized copepod (Calanoides patagoniensis) and a large euphausiid (Euphausia vallentini). Corals showed a Type I functional response, where feeding rate increased linearly with prey abundance, as predicted for a tentaculate passive suspension feeder. No significant differences in feeding were found between prey items, and corals were able to attain a maximum feeding rate of 10.99 mg C h−1, which represents an ingestion of the 11.4% of the coral carbon biomass per hour. These findings suggest that D. dianthus is a generalist zooplankton predator capable of exploiting dense aggregations of zooplankton over a wide prey size-range.
Highlights
In recent years, cold-water corals (CWC) have received increasing attention from the scientific community as they were considered vulnerable to global warming and ocean acidification (Doney et al, 2009; Maier et al, 2012; Jantzen et al, 2013a, 2013b; Lebrato et al, 2016)
Corals were immediately transported to Huinay Scientific Field Station (HSFS), where they were placed in flow-through aquaria constantly supplied with unfiltered fjord water from 24 m water depth to resemble their natural conditions
D. dianthus displayed a functional response Type I, which implies that coral ingestion rate increases linearly with prey abundance
Summary
Cold-water corals (CWC) have received increasing attention from the scientific community as they were considered vulnerable to global warming and ocean acidification (Doney et al, 2009; Maier et al, 2012; Jantzen et al, 2013a, 2013b; Lebrato et al, 2016). There are recent findings on how CWC may response to global change (Maier et al, 2012, 2013; Jantzen et al, 2013b; McCulloch et al, 2012a, 2012b; Findlay et al, 2014; Gori et al, 2016), there are still several uncertainties about their adaptive capacity. The capacity to withstand unfavorable conditions likely depends on the nutrition level and the overall fitness of the corals (Guinotte et al, 2006; Jantzen et al, 2013a)
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