Selective predation by a harpacticoid copepod on ciliates in phytotelmata: a laboratory experiment
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- 作者：Krzysztof Wiackowski ; Wioleta Kocerba-Soroka
- 关键词：Calathea ; Container habitats ; Ingestion rate ; Meiofauna ; Protists
- 刊名：Hydrobiologia
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：April 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：790
- 期：1
- 页码：13-22
- 全文大小：489KB
- 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
- 刊物主题：Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Ecology; Zoology;
- 出版者：Springer International Publishing
- ISSN：1573-5117
- 卷排序：790
文摘
Copepods are the most numerous metazoans in water-filled phytotelmata formed by Heliconia and Calathea floral bracts in cloud forests of Cordillera de la Costa, Northern Venezuela. We estimated the potential effect of copepods on ciliate community structure in this habitat with a laboratory experiment. Predation effects of five life stages of a harpacticoid copepod on a mixed culture of five bacterivorous ciliate species were measured during a 48-hour incubation. The predation effect depended on copepod life stage and on ciliate prey species. The abundances of Colpoda inflata, Tetrahymena pyriformis, and Colpidium kleini were significantly reduced, the actual effect strongly depending on copepod developmental stage. No detectable predation was observed on Paramecium aurelia or Tachysoma pellionellum. The results suggest that predation by harpacticoid copepods is an important factor influencing ciliate community structure in phytotelmata.