Selective predation by a sculpin and a stonefly on two chironomids in laboratory feeding trials
✍ Scribed by Anne E. Hershey; Stanley I. Dodson
- Book ID
- 104613912
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1985
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 390 KB
- Volume
- 124
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1573-5141
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Sculpin and stonefly predators fed selectively on the larvae of the chironomids Paratendipes over Cricotopus in laboratory stream microcosms. In these experiments, Cricotopus were usually tube-dwelling, whereas Paratendipes were usually free-living. Paratendipes were also bright red, which may have influenced selectivity by visual feeding sculpin, but tactile feeding stoneflies were most likely influenced only by the difference in tube-dwelling behavior of the two prey types. Both chironomids were abundant in the field, but exhibited discrete microhabitat distributions. Field collected sculpin ate mostly Cricotopus, probably because Cricotopus occurred in a more accessible microhabitat.