Feeding, food preference, and the uptake of food energy by the supralittoral isopodLigia pallasii

✍ Scribed by T. H. Carefoot

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 984 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0025-3162
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00367989

✦ Synopsis

Analyses of gut contents of freshly collected Elgin pallasii (Brandt) showed that the principal foods wore eucrusting diatoms, insect lal-rae, occasional members of the same species, and a variety of rod and green seaweeds growing in the upper intertidal tidepool habitat. L. pallasii prefers to eat the green seaweed Ulva sp., and the brown alga Nereocystis luetkenya, when given a choice between several seaweeds, although neither of these forms is normally accessible to the isopods. The absorption ("assimilation") of food-energy was 78 % on a diet of Ulva and 55 to 76 % on a diet of hr. luetkeana -representative values for an algivorous invertebrate. A correlation analysis on the relationship of feeding preference of L.

pallasii with calorific value of 7 potential seaweed foods suggested that feeding preference in this species is related to factors other than energy content of the food. Food preferences of invertebrates are discussed in relation to calorific value, accessibility, and to various nutritional factors.