Prey perception in feeding-current feeding copepods

RODRIGO J. GONÇALVES; E. SAIZ; KIØRBOE, THOMAS; H. VAN SOMEREN GRÉVE; D. COUESPEL; P. TISELIUS

LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY

AMER SOC LIMNOLOGY OCEANOGRAPHY

Lugar: New ; Año: 2016

0024-3590

We reply to the comments of Paffenho ?fer and Jiang (2016) who argues that remote chemical prey percep-tion is necessary for feeding-current feeding copepods to fulfill their nutritional requirements in a diluteocean, that remote chemical prey detection may only be observed at very low prey concentrations, and thatchemical prey perception is feasible if prey cells release dissolved organic material in short-lasting but intensebursts. We demonstrate that mechanoreception at a very short range is sufficient to sustain a living, even ina dilute ocean. Further, if chemoreception requires that prey cells have short intense leakage burst, only avery small fraction of prey cells would be available to the copepod at any instance in time and, thus wouldbe inefficient at low prey concentration. Finally, we report a few new observations of prey capture in two spe-cies of copepods, Temora longicornis and Centropages hamatus, offered a 45-lm sized dinoflagellate at very lowconcentration. The observed short prey detection distances, up to a few prey cell radii, are consistent withmechanoreception and we argue briefly that near-field mechanoreception is the most likely and commonprey perception mechanism in calanoid copepods.