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Growth and grazing rates of the tintinnid ciliate Favella taraikaensis on the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense

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Abstract

Growth and feeding activities of the tintinnid ciliate Favella taraikaensis fed the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense were examined in laboratory experiments. Both growth and ingestion rates of F. taraikaensis as a function of the A. tamarense concentration were fitted to a rectangular hyperbolic equation. The maximum growth and ingestion rates of F. taraikaensis were 1.0 day−1 and 2.8 cells ind. h−1 (carbon specific ingestion rates: 3.5 day−1), respectively, which are both included in the range of previous data reported for Favella spp. feeding on other algae. The gross growth efficiency (GGE) of F. taraikaensis ranged from 0.26 to 0.49 (mean value 0.40) at the concentration of 10–800 cells ml−1, which is within the range of previous data on Favella spp. Also, the growth and ingestion rates and GGE of F. taraikaensis on A. tamarense were not significantly different from the values on another non-toxic dinoflagellate (Heterocapsa triquetra) at two different prey concentrations. This indicates that the toxicity of A. tamarense probably did not influence the feeding and growth activities of F. taraikaensis at concentrations of less than ca. 800 cells ml−1. To evaluate the grazing by F. taraikaensis on A. tamarense blooms in the field, the population dynamics of A. tamarense were simulated based on the growth and ingestion parameters of F. taraikaensis. As a result, the grazing impact by F. taraikaensis was considered to potentially regulate the development of A. tamarense blooms. If the toxicity of A. tamarense does not influence the growth and feeding activities of F. taraikaensis, the occurrence of such grazer plankton are considered to be important for predicting the course of A. tamarense bloom dynamics under natural conditions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mr. Yuichi Kotani (National Research Institute of Fisheries and Environment of Inland Sea) who was a leader of the project “Development of Technique for Predicting Phytoplankton Blooms Responsible for Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning” for supporting the present study. We express our gratitude to Dr. Oshima of Tohoku University, and to the Japan Fisheries Resource Conservation Association for providing the PSP toxins standard. We also appreciate Dr. David J.S. Montagnes and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was partly supported by a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan. This paper was issued as FRA-TNFRI-B55.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tohoku National Fisheries Research Institute, Shinhama, Shiogama, 985-0001, Miyagi , Japan

    Takashi Kamiyama & Takuji Uchida

  2. National Research Institute of Fisheries and Environment of Inland Sea, 2-17-5 Maruishi, Ohno, Saeki, 739-0452, Hiroshima , Japan

    Mutsumi Tsujino & Yukihiko Matsuyama

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  1. Takashi Kamiyama
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  2. Mutsumi Tsujino
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  3. Yukihiko Matsuyama
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  4. Takuji Uchida
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Correspondence to Takashi Kamiyama.

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Communicated by T. Ikeda, Hakodate

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Kamiyama, T., Tsujino, M., Matsuyama, Y. et al. Growth and grazing rates of the tintinnid ciliate Favella taraikaensis on the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense. Marine Biology 147, 989–997 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-005-1629-2

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