JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH | VOLUME 4 | NUMBER 2 | PAGES 203-217 | 1982
© Oxford University Press
research-article |
Ctenophore-zooplankton-phytoplankton interactions in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, USA, during 1972–1977
Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881, USA
Received on August 1, 1980; accepted on November 1, 1981 Plankton dynamics at a station in lower Narragansett Bay, RI are compared for six summer and fall seasons, 1972–1977. In four of these years, initiation of the summer pulse of the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi was accompanied by a rapid decline in zooplankton abundance and a summer phytoplankton bloom. Termination of the phytoplankton bloom coincided with depleted ctenophore abundance and increased zooplankton biomass in two of the years. Yearly variations in the summer abundance of the diatom Skeletonema costatum were positively related to the magnitude of the ctenophore pulse. The magnitude of ctenophore population was related to the zooplankton biomass present at the start of the pulse. These relationships, the timing and magnitude of the plankton events suggest that M. leidyi regulated summer zooplankton and phytoplankton dynamics. Ctenophores may control phytoplankton blooms indirectly through their predation on herbivorous zooplankton and directly by the nutrient excretion accompanying such grazing. This evidence that a planktonic carnivore two trophic steps removed from the phytoplankton regulates the latter's dynamics in Narragansett Bay is analogous to reported regulation of benthic algal (kelp) dynamics by the sea otter, lobster and various crabs through their predation on herbivorous sea urchins. The factors responsible for the seasonal decrease in ctenophores remain unresolved; ctenophore predators on Mnemiopsis are absent in Narragansett Bay. Infection by the vermiform larval anemone, Edwardsia lineata, grazing by the butterfish, Peprilus triacanthus, and changes in food availability, temperature and salinity likewise do not explain this disappearance.
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