Journal
PEERJ
Volume 6, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PEERJ INC
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5872
Keywords
Desmophyllum dianthus; Cold-water coral; Functional response; Coral feeding; Euphausia vallentini; Calanoides patagoniensis
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Funding
- bilateral Chilean-German PACOC Project [CONICYT-BMBF 20140041, BMBF 01DN15024]
- CONICYT FONDAP-IDEAL [15150003]
- AWI (PACES II)
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The feeding behavior of the cosmopolitan cold-water coral (CWC) Desmophyllum dianthus (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) is still poorly known. Its usual deep distribution restricts direct observations, and manipulative experiments are so far limited to prey that do not occur in CWC natural habitat. During a series of replicated incubations, we assessed the functional response of this coral feeding on a medium-sized copepod (Calanoides patagoniensis) and a large euphausiid (Euphausia vallentini). Corals showed a Type I functional response, where feeding rate increased linearly with prey abundance, as predicted for a tentaculate passive suspension feeder. No significant differences in feeding were found between prey items, and corals were able to attain a maximum feeding rate of 10.99 mg Ch(-1), which represents an ingestion of the 11.4% of the coral carbon biomass per hour. These findings suggest that D. dianthus is a generalist zooplankton predator capable of exploiting dense aggregations of zooplankton over a wide prey size-range.
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