Seasonal switching in the nutritional requirements of Nitocra typica: a harpacticoid copepod from salt marsh aufwuchs communities
The nutritional requirements of Nitocra typica Boeck were studied in gnotobiotic cultures incubated at either 15 or 25 C. Both temperature and food quality effected the growth rate and fecundity of the copepods. On adequate diets generation time at 15C was 31 to 41 days, while at 25 C it was 13 to 24 days. Taken as a group, diatoms were better food sources than the chlorophytes tested. At 15 C nauplii hatched 2 days earlier from animals fed on diets of strains 709 and Bl-27 of Cylindrotheca closterium and C. fusiformis, respectively, than those raised on C. closterium (strains Bl-35 and 9), but they were less viable and matured more slowly. At 15 C the fastest maturity was reached on a diet of strain 9, but the total number of fertile females was only 17% of the number produced on a diet of strain 709. At 25 C the nutritional value of these strains was reversed. One species of Nitzschia (Pb-7) was a good diet at both temperatures. Some species of Chlamydomonas or Dunaliella were good foods at one or both temperatures for all the stages of the life cycle, while others were not. Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Amphora coffeaeformis acutiuscula are not good food sources. The animal has very complex and graded nutritional requirements which seem to flexibly adapt it to feed on different species and strains of algae which are likely to occur in the community at different seasons.
- Research Organization:
- City Coll. of New York, NY
- OSTI ID:
- 6470694
- Journal Information:
- Trans. Am. Microsc. Soc.; (United States), Vol. 95:4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
COPEPODS
DIET
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
NUTRITION
ALGAE
ANIMAL GROWTH
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
AQUATIC ORGANISMS
ESTUARIES
FERTILITY
LIFE CYCLE
TEMPERATURE EFFECTS
VIABILITY
ANIMALS
ARTHROPODS
CRUSTACEANS
ECOSYSTEMS
GROWTH
INVERTEBRATES
PLANTS
SURFACE WATERS
VARIATIONS
550500* - Metabolism