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JPR Advance Access originally published online on September 26, 2005
Journal of Plankton Research 2006 28(3):267-274; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbi071
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Influence of spatial heterogeneity on predation by the flatworm Mesostoma ehrenbergii (Focke) on calanoid and cyclopoid copepods

Carolina Trochine*, Beatriz Modenutti and Esteban Balseiro

Laboratorio de Limnología, Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche, Unidad Postal Universidad, R8400FRF Bariloche, Argentina

* Corresponding Author: trochine{at}crub.uncoma.edu.ar

Received July 29, 2005; accepted in principle August 30, 2005; accepted for publication September 13, 2005; published online September 26, 2005
Communicating editor: K.J. Flynn

Through laboratory experiments, we analysed the influence of spatial heterogeneity on predation by Mesostoma ehrenbergii on the calanoid Boeckella gracilis and the cyclopoid Acanthocyclops robustus in four horizontal and two vertical spatial arrangements. This spatial heterogeneity simulated that of Juncaceae stems, a major macrophyte in the natural environment of these zooplankton. Our results indicated that M. ehrenbergii preyed differently on these copepod species. The rate of predation of M. ehrenbergii on A. robustus females reached saturation in all the treatments with and without horizontal spatial heterogeneity, but lower predation rates were observed in the medium heterogeneity treatment. Predation rates of Mesostoma on B. gracilis increased with the increase in prey abundance in the treatment without heterogeneity, while predation rates reached saturation in the treatments with horizontal spatial heterogeneity. Mesostoma ehrenbergii consumed males and females of B. gracilis in each of the arrangements tested. In natural habitats, interaction between extent of macrophyte development and intensity of predation by M. ehrenbergii on copepods species may be expected. We suggest that the structural complexity given by macrophytes in Patagonian fishless habitats provide a bottleneck for M. ehrenbergii predation.

This paper was presented at Plankton Symposium III, held at Figuera da Foz, Portugal between 17 and 20 March 2005, under the auspices of the University of Coimbra and the University of Aveiro, and coordinated by Mário Jorge Pereira and Ulisses M. Azeiteiro.


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