Abstract
Cyanea nozakii, a common jellyfish distributed in offshore China, has a complex trophic relationship with other zooplankton groups. However, few studies have reported the predation rates and prey selection patterns of C. nozakii medusae on different prey items. Research is also lacking on the intraguild predation of Aurelia coerulea (another common bloom jellyfish in offshore China) by C. nozakii. To address the knowledge gaps, the clearance rates of C. nozakii for different prey items, including copepods (small<1 000 µm and large>1 000 µm), fish larvae, and gelatinous prey (hydromedusae, A. coerulea ephyrae, and chaetognaths), were measured. The influence of predator size on the clearance rate was also determined. Additionally, we examined the intraguild predation of C. nozakii on A. coerulea medusae. The clearance rates of C. nozakii varied widely with prey organisms, being independent of prey concentrations. Gelatinous organisms, except for chaetognaths, were captured with considerably high efficiency, followed by fish larvae and copepods, indicating the preferential prey selection of gelatinous organisms by C. nozakii. The clearance rate increased linearly with the cross-sectional area of C. nozakii. Body size in medusae may, to some extents, underpin their capacity to capture more prey by increasing the encounter rate and capture success through ontogeny. C. nozakii preyed voraciously on A. coerulea in high feeding efficiency, but the clearance rate decreased with increasing A. coerulea (as prey) size. This phenomenon of intraguild predation suggests a speculative hypothesis of potential population regulation of A. coerulea by C. nozakii. The information regarding the feeding ecology of C. nozakii reported in this study is important for understanding plankton dynamics in marine ecosystems with extensive occurrences of this jellyfish.
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Data Availability Statement
The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
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We thank the captain and crew of the R/V Haiou. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable comments.
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Supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA19060203), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42076166, 42130411), the National Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2021QD061), the CAS-CSIRO Project Fund (No. GJHZ1888), the Mount Tai Scholar Climbing Plan to Song SUN, the Innovation Team of Fishery Resources and Ecology in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea (No. 2020TD01), and the Hainan Province Basic and Applied Basic Research Program (Natural Science Field) High-Level Talent Project (No. 2019RC353)
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Wang, P., Zhang, F., Sun, S. et al. Experimental clearance rate and intraguild predation of jellyfish Cyanea nozakii. J. Ocean. Limnol. 42, 128–140 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-023-2321-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-023-2321-4