Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY
Volume 359, Issue 1, Pages 55-61Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.jembe.2008.02.018
Keywords
bacteria; environmental factor; foraminifera; Grazing; mudflat; prey abundance; trophoecology
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The majority of sediment dweller foraminifera are deposit feeders. They use their pseudopodia to gather sediment with associated algae, organic detritus and bacteria. Uptake of bacteria by foraminifera have been observed but rarely quantified. We measured uptake of bacteria by the common foraminifera Ammonia tepida using N-15 pre-enriched bacteria as tracers. In intertidal flats, seasonal, tidal and circadian cycles induce strong variations in environmental parameters. Grazing experiments were performed in order to measure effects of abiotic (temperature, salinity and irradiance) and biotic (bacterial and algal abundances) factors on uptake rates of bacteria. In mean conditions, A. tepida grazed 78 pgC ind(-1) h(-1) during the first eight hours of incubation, after which this uptake rate decreased. Uptake of bacteria was optimal at 30 degrees C, decreased with salinity and was unaffected by light. Above 7 x 108 bacteria ml wt sed(-1), uptake of bacteria remained unchanged when bacterial abundance increased. Algal abundance strongly affected algal uptake but did not affect uptake of bacteria. As uptake of bacteria represented 8 to 19% of microbes (algae plus bacteria) uptake, Ammonia seemed to be mainly dependant on algal resource. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available