Abstract
To date, efforts to develop a method for rapidly measuring the development and growth rates of marine zooplankton have met with little success. In recent years, however, a simple assay based on a crustacean moulting enzyme, chitobiase, has shown considerable promise. Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that chitobiase activity is proportional to individual body size across three species of freshwater daphnids. Here, we show that a significant positive relationship exists between chitobiase activity and body length (and weight) across four species of marine copepods collected from natural populations in coastal British Columbia, Canada. We measured the decay rate of chitobiase in the water column and estimated in situ moulting and growth rates of the entire copepod community, which are in good agreement (5%–15%) with conventional moulting rates and literature-based estimates. This method can be applied at a relatively high spatial and temporal resolution and its utility is potentially analogous to conventional community-wide productivity estimates for phytoplankton and bacterioplankton in marine and freshwater systems.
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