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Gut contents and isotopic profiles of Salpa fusiformis and Thalia democratica

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-19, 05:39 authored by Ahmad Ishak, NH, Clementson, LA, Ruth Eriksen, van den Enden, RL, Guy Williams, Kerrie SwadlingKerrie Swadling
Little is known about the diet of planktonic tunicates such as salps, which can comprise around 80% of zooplankton abundance under bloom conditions. The gut contents of solitary and aggregate phases of the salps Thalia democratica and Salpa fusiformis were analysed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and stable isotope analyses (SIA) to describe their diets under field conditions. The gut contents contained representatives of diatoms, dinoflagellates, haptophyte flagellates (Order Prymnesiales and Coccolithophorales), prasinophytes (Order Chlorodendrales) and, in a few instances, copepods (Crustacea). SEM confirmed the presence of many species of phytoplankton in the salp guts and was broadly supported by HPLC and SIA. The dominant peaks in the HPLC chromatograms corresponded to fucoxanthin, alloxanthin, chlorophyll b and β-carotene, indicating the ingestion of diatoms, cryptophytes and green algae. Solitary stages of both S. fusiformis and T. democratica fed on items that were not common in the phytoplankton samples, namely coccolithophores and copepods, respectively.

Funding

Fisheries Research & Development Corporation

History

Publication title

Marine Biology

Volume

164

Article number

144

Number

144

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

0025-3162

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Place of publication

175 Fifth Ave, New York, USA, Ny, 10010

Rights statement

Copyright 2017 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Coastal or estuarine biodiversity

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