Abstract

Predation by the Baltic Sea mysid Mysis mixta onnewly hatched Artemia sp. and culturedDaphnia magna was examined in the laboratory. Wedesigned experiments to study the effects onconsumption rate of different experimental conditions:light, container size, diel variation, duration ofadaptation period, starvation and the duration of afeeding experiment.Consumption differed significantly between mysids keptin bright light vs mysids in complete darkness, withabout twice the consumption in darkness. Acclimationto light conditions prior to the experiment did notinfluence this result. The duration of an experimenthas large effect on estimated consumption. Predationrates in 1-h experiments were up to 60% higher thanthose recorded in 4-, 12- and 24-h incubations.Consumption rates of starved mysids were significantlyhigher (27% on average) than that of unstarvedindividuals. No significant diel variation inconsumption was observed over an experimental periodat 36 hours. We found a tendency, however notstatistically significant, that the food consumptionincreased when the container size ws increased between1 and 8 l.

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