Prey-capture rates in four Mediterranean cold water corals

7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, supplementary videos Little is known about the basic biology of deep-water coral species. In this study, we experimentally assessed the rates of ingestion of Artemia salina adults and nauplii by the 4 Mediterranean cold water coral species Dendrophyllia cornigera, Desmop...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine Ecology Progress Series
Main Authors: Tsounis, Georgios, Orejas, Covadonga, Reynaud, Stéphanie, Gili, Josep Maria, Allemand, Denis, Ferrier-Pagès, Christine
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Inter Research 2009
Subjects:
Cold-water corals
Grazing rates
Colony size
Trophic ecology
Benthic-pelagic coupling
Lophelia pertusa
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/84294
https://doi.org/10.3354/meps08312
Description
Summary:7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, supplementary videos Little is known about the basic biology of deep-water coral species. In this study, we experimentally assessed the rates of ingestion of Artemia salina adults and nauplii by the 4 Mediterranean cold water coral species Dendrophyllia cornigera, Desmophyllum cristagalli, Madrepora oculata, and Lophelia pertusa. All species ingested A. salina in adult and nauplii forms. L. pertusa showed the highest grazing rate for both prey types, whereas M. oculata showed the lowest capture rates among the 4 species, and was practically unable to ingest adult prey. Capture rates of the 4 coral species ranged between 5 and 8 adult A. salina, and 50 and 280 nauplii polyp-1 h-1. Surprisingly, both capture rates and carbon uptake (adult Artemia ingestion: 994 to 3542 μg C polyp-1 h-1; nauplii ingestion: 78.1 to 462 μg C polyp-1 h-1) were within the range of values found in some tropical corals (which often ingest 0.004 to 3600 prey items polyp-1 h-1). The results show that the capture rates and energy input of the studied cold water coral species appear to be on a level that is comparable to that of other corals, even tropical zooxanthellate species. © Inter-Research 2010 · www.int-res.com G.T. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation (E-08-2007-1673618) and C.O. was supported by a I3P postdoctoral contract from CSIC (I3P-PC2006L), co-financed by the European Social Fund. This study was developed within the frame of the European project HERMES (Goce-CT-2005-511234-I), the research projects from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation DEEP CORAL (CTM2005-07756-C02-02/MAR), as well as the Acciones Complementarias (CTM2006-27063-E/MAR, CTM2007-28758-E/MAR) Peer Reviewed

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