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JPR Advance Access originally published online on November 16, 2008
Journal of Plankton Research 2009 31(2):121-133; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbn109
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Swimming in turbulence: zooplankton fitness in terms of foraging efficiency and predation risk

André W. Visser1,*, Patrizio Mariani1 and Simone Pigolotti2

1 Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Department of Marine Ecology and Aquaculture, Technical University of Denmark, Kavalergaarden 6, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark 2 Niels Bohr Institute, Niels Bohr International Academy, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

* CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: awv{at}dfu.min.dk

Received on September 17, 2008; accepted on October 23, 2008


  Abstract

Turbulence impacts zooplankton fitness in opposing manners, by increasing contacts with prey but at the same time increasing contacts with predators. We investigate the fitness of individual zooplankton in terms of a trade-off between energetic gains and costs, and risk of predation. Through idealized descriptions of foraging and predation in a turbulent water column, we determine how fast a zooplankter should swim, if at all, and where should it position itself in the vertical to maximize its fitness given certain environmental conditions. Suspension feeding has an advantage over ambush feeding at high turbulence levels, whereas cruise feeding becomes optimal at low turbulence levels. In general, behaviours that seek out low levels of turbulence increase an individual's fitness, a prediction that runs counter to turbulent encounter rate arguments, and exposes the fallacy of examining only the foraging aspects of the fitness trade-off.

Corresponding editor: Roger Harris


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