Motility of copepod nauplii and implications for food encounter

Abstract

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 247:123-135 (2003) - doi:10.3354/meps247123 Motility of copepod nauplii and implications for food encounter Josefin Titelman1,2,3,*, Thomas Kiørboe1 1Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Department of Marine Ecology and Aquaculture, Kavalergården 6, 2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark 2Göteborg University, Department of Marine Ecology, Kristineberg Marine Research Station, 450 34 Fiskebäckskil, Sweden 3Present address: Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, United Kingdom *Email: joti@pml.ac.uk ABSTRACT: Velocity differences drive all encounter processes. Therefore, knowledge of both prey and predator motility are essential in order to understand feeding behavior and predict food acquisition rates. Here, we describe and quantify the motility behavior of young and old naupliar stages of 6 copepods (Centropages typicus, Calanus helgolandicus, Temora longicornis, Acartia tonsa, Eurytemora affinis and Euterpina acutifrons). Behaviors of individual nauplii were divided into sequences of sinking, swimming and jumping events. Motility behavior is both stage- and species-specific in terms of appearance of tracks, speeds, durations and frequencies of events as well as time budgets. Motility mode often changes drastically during naupliar ontogeny. Crudely, nauplii can be divided into those moving with a jump-sink type of motility of various frequencies (1 min-1 to 3 s-1) and those swimming with a smoother glide of varying continuity. We apply observed time budgets and behavior-specific speeds in simple models to examine mechanisms of food encounter. The motility of all nauplii may account for clearance rates reported in the literature, but through different mechanisms. Smoothly swimming nauplii encounter food by scavenging, which also allows for some food capture inefficiency. Jump-sink types rely on motile food. We demonstrate how diffusivity of motile prey may account for observed clearance rates for jump-sink types, which seem to employ 2 strategies. Infrequent jumping as observed in many cyclopoids is sufficient to prevent prey diffusion from reaching steady state rates, which are too low to account for observed clearance rates reported in the literature. Frequent jumpers (e.g. Acartia tonsa) jump at a frequency close to the optimum required to maximize the use of prey motility and to avoid local food depletion. KEY WORDS: Nauplii · Copepod · Motility · Behavior · Food encounter · Clearance rate · Volume encounter · Predator prey interaction · 3D Full text in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 247. Online publication date: February 04, 2003 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2003 Inter-Research.