Affiliation:
1. Marine Biological Research Centre, University of Southern Denmark, 5300 Kerteminde, Denmark
2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Abstract
The common jellyfish Aurelia spp. often appears in large numbers in coastal regions around the world, having a considerable predation impact on zooplankton. To better understand and quantify this phenomenon, several laboratory and field studies have determined growth rates by recording umbrella diameter and/or dry weight versus time. However, there appears to be no model describing such data. Here, we use a bioenergetic model for growth of Aurelia spp. dry mass (W) based on ingested food minus respiration, leading to the weight-specific growth rate μ (1/W) dW/dt = aWb, where the constant a depends on prey concentration and the exponent is b = -0.2. The model is tested against Aurelia spp. data in several examples, some of which represent well-fed conditions that show fair agreement with the model (b = -0.2 to -0.4), while others depart increasingly from the model (b < -0.4) with increasing W, likely due to suboptimal and fluctuating prey concentrations. Based on the model and available data, it is suggested that for a given size W, the specific growth rate increases linearly with prey concentration up to about 5 to 6 Artemia sp. l-1, where a maximal growth rate (μmax) is reached which is not exceeded for higher prey concentrations.
Publisher
Inter-Research Science Center
Subject
Ecology,Aquatic Science,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cited by
10 articles.
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