Assimilation of particulate organic carbon by estuarine and coastal copepods

✍ Scribed by M. B. Chervin

• Book ID: 104752388
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 908 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0025-3162
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00391139

✦ Synopsis

A study was done to assess the relative roles of phytoplankton and detritus as carbon sources for copepods. A series of shipboard experiments were conducted from April 1975 to March 1976, in which natural assemblages of copepods were incubated with suspensions of particulates obtained in the Hudson River Estuary and apex of the New York Bight. Daily assimilation rates in both areas fluctuated between 2.7 and 156% of copepod body weight. Partial correlation analysis showed that variability in assimilation rates was related to temperature and body weight and that copepods were generally not food-limited. Detritus formed between 26 and 44% of the diet in the estuary and 31 to 81% in the apex. The greater utilization of detritus in the apex, in spite of lower concentrations, was probably related to qualitative differences in the detritus found in the two areas. Net growth efficiencies range from 9 to 76%, and were inversely proportional to the percentage of detritus in the diet. This suggests that detritus is inferior to phytoplankton as a food source.