Tolerance and sequestration of macroalgal chemical defenses by an Antarctic amphipod: a ‘cheater’ among mutualists

Abstract

Shallow-water communities along the western Antarctic Peninsula support forests of large, mostly chemically defended macroalgae and dense assemblages of macroalgal-associated amphipods, which are thought to exist together in a community-wide mutualism. The amphipods benefit the chemically defended macrophytes by consuming epiphytic algae and in turn benefit from an associational refuge from fish predation. In the present study, we document an exception to this pattern. The amphipod Paradexamine fissicauda is able to consume Plocamium carti- lagineum and Picconiella plumosa, 2 species of sympatric, chemically defended red macroalgae. In previous studies, Plocamium cartilagineum was one of the most strongly deterrent algae in the community to multiple consumers, and was found here to be unpalatable to 5 other amphipod spe- cies which utilize it as a host in nature. Paradexamine fissicauda maintained on a diet of Ploca - mium cartilagineum for 2 mo were much less likely to be eaten by fish than Paradexamine fissi- cauda maintained on a red alga which does not elaborate chemical defenses, or than a different but morphologically similar sympatric amphipod species. Halogenated secondary metabolites pro- duced by Plocamium cartilagineum were identified from tissues of the Paradexamine fissicauda that had eaten it but not those which had eaten the undefended red alga. This indicates that P. fissi- cauda is sequestering the potent chemical defenses of Plocamium cartilagineum for its own use.