Testing and Extension of a Sea Lamprey Feeding Model

Abstract

Abstract A previous model of feeding by sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus predicted energy intake and growth by lampreys as a function of lamprey size, host size, and duration of feeding attachments, but it was applicable only to lampreys feeding at 10°C and it was tested against only a single small data set of limited scope. We extended the model to other temperatures and tested it against an extensive data set (more than 700 feeding bouts) accumulated during experiments with captive sea lampreys. Model predictions of instantaneous growth were highly correlated with observed growth, and a partitioning of mean squared error between model predictions and observed results showed that 88.5% of the variance was due to random variation rather than to systematic errors. However, deviations between observed and predicted values varied substantially, especially for short feeding bouts. Predicted and observed growth trajectories of individual lampreys during multiple feeding bouts during the summer tended to correspo...