Fluorescence analysis of zooplankton gut contents and an investigation of diel feeding patterns

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Abstract

A method is described for measurement of the in situ feeding rate of planktonic herbivores. Freshly caught Zooplankton are washed with filtered sea water and frozen. The gut contents are later analysed using acetone extracts of the entire sample. Fluorescence peaks due to ingested chlorophyll are easy to quantify for sample sizes of 20–200 animals. This method obviates some of the problems, such as confinement and previous feeding history, associated with extrapolation from laboratory experiments to field conditions. The method is illustrated by an investigation of diel feeding patterns of marine copepods. Initial results indicate the complexity of these patterns, with either a single night peak or dawn and dusk peaks for adult copepods. Diel variations in feeding activity appear to occur in addition to, but closely interacting with, the diel vertical migrations of the animals.

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    Citation Excerpt :

    Dry weight (DW) of crustacean plankton was estimated as 0.16 WW (Vinogradov and Shushkina, 1987), DW of chaetognaths was calculated according to Matthews and Hestad (1977), larvaceans – to Hopcroft et al. (1998). Feeding rates of the dominant species (Calanus glacialis, Limnocalanus macrurus, Pseudocalanus spp., Bosmina sp., Daphnia spp., Oikopleura vanhoeffeni) were assessed with the gut fluorescence method (Mackas and Bohrer, 1976). A controversy exists about the accuracy of the method due to the possibility of pigment destruction during the passage through the gut (e.g., Båmstedt et al., 2000b).

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