TY - JOUR
T1 - All you can eat
T2 - The functional response of the cold-water coral desmophyllum dianthus feeding on krill and copepods
AU - Höfer, Juan
AU - González, Humberto E.
AU - Laudien, Jürgen
AU - Schmidt, Gertraud M.
AU - Häussermann, Verena
AU - Richter, Claudio
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the bilateral Chilean-German PACOC Project (CONICYT-BMBF 20140041; BMBF 01DN15024) as well as CONICYT FONDAP-IDEAL 15150003 and AWI (PACES II, Topic 1, WP6). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Funding Information:
The following grant information was disclosed by the authors: Bilateral Chilean-German PACOC Project: CONICYT-BMBF 20140041; BMBF 01DN15024. CONICYT FONDAP-IDEAL 15150003 and AWI: PACES II, Topic 1, WP6.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2018 Höfer et al.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - The feeding behavior of the cosmopolitan cold-water coral (CWC) Desmophyllum dianthus (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) is still poorly known. Its usual deep distribution restricts direct observations, and manipulative experiments are so far limited to prey that do not occur in CWC natural habitat. During a series of replicated incubations, we assessed the functional response of this coral feeding on a medium-sized copepod (Calanoides patagoniensis) and a large euphausiid (Euphausia vallentini). Corals showed a Type I functional response, where feeding rate increased linearly with prey abundance, as predicted for a tentaculate passive suspension feeder. No significant differences in feeding were found between prey items, and corals were able to attain a maximum feeding rate of 10.99 mg C h-1, which represents an ingestion of the 11.4% of the coral carbon biomass per hour. These findings suggest that D. dianthus is a generalist zooplankton predator capable of exploiting dense aggregations of zooplankton over a wide prey size-range.
AB - The feeding behavior of the cosmopolitan cold-water coral (CWC) Desmophyllum dianthus (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) is still poorly known. Its usual deep distribution restricts direct observations, and manipulative experiments are so far limited to prey that do not occur in CWC natural habitat. During a series of replicated incubations, we assessed the functional response of this coral feeding on a medium-sized copepod (Calanoides patagoniensis) and a large euphausiid (Euphausia vallentini). Corals showed a Type I functional response, where feeding rate increased linearly with prey abundance, as predicted for a tentaculate passive suspension feeder. No significant differences in feeding were found between prey items, and corals were able to attain a maximum feeding rate of 10.99 mg C h-1, which represents an ingestion of the 11.4% of the coral carbon biomass per hour. These findings suggest that D. dianthus is a generalist zooplankton predator capable of exploiting dense aggregations of zooplankton over a wide prey size-range.
KW - Calanoides patagoniensis
KW - Cold-water coral
KW - Coral feeding
KW - Desmophyllum dianthus
KW - Euphausia vallentini
KW - Functional response
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056300831&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7717/peerj.5872
DO - 10.7717/peerj.5872
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056300831
VL - 2018
JO - PeerJ
JF - PeerJ
SN - 2167-8359
IS - 11
M1 - e5872
ER -