Detection of zooplankton items in the stomach and gut content of larval krill, Euphausia superba, using a molecular approach

8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table The usefulness of a molecular approach based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was investigated to identify and quantify the feeding of larval krill on zooplankton organisms in the Lazarev Sea during winter in 2006. Different primers and probes of dominant copepod specie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Biology
Main Authors: Töbe, Kerstin, Meyer, Bettina, Fuentes, Veronica
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer 2009
Subjects:
Krill larvae
Copepod prey
PCR
Quantitative PCR
Lazarev
Lazarev Sea
Southern Ocean
Euphausia superba
Polar Biology
Sea ice
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/20272
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-009-0714-2
Description
Summary:8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table The usefulness of a molecular approach based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was investigated to identify and quantify the feeding of larval krill on zooplankton organisms in the Lazarev Sea during winter in 2006. Different primers and probes of dominant copepod species (Oithona sp., Ctenocalanus citer, copepodid stages of Metridia gerlachei and Calanoides acutus), co-occurring with larval krill under sea ice during winter, were developed for quantitative PCR (qPCR) and their species specificity was tested on target and non-target species. The qPCR results showed that larval krill were exclusively feeding on Oithona sp. This result was confirmed by microscopic analysis of stomach and gut contents of larvae from the same stations. This work was supported by funding from the German Ministry of Education and Science through project 03F0400A, Subproject 4 of the Lazarev Sea Krill Study (LAKRIS) Project. The LAKRIS-Project is the German contribution to the Southern Ocean-Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (SO-GLOBEC) programme. Peer reviewed

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