Marine Biology

, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp 99–114 | Cite as

Ecological energetics of the seaweed zone in a marine bay on the Atlantic coast of Canada. III. Energy transformations by sea urchins

  • R. J. Miller
  • K. H. Mann
Article
Accepted:

Abstract

An energy budget was constructed for a population of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis in the nearshore area of St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. Of the 6 age classes identified, ages 1+and 2+accounted for about 1/2 the population energy flow. Population production efficiencies were: production/assimilation=0.28, production/consumption=0.04 to 0.13, and production/biomass=0.80. Although S. droebachiensis was the dominant herbivore in the seaweed bed, it utilized only 1 to 7% of seaweed production. As with other populations of sea urchins, however, it had a proportionately greater influence on seaweed biomass, and also presumably production, by clearing seaweed from large areas of substrate and maintaining it clear. Loss of dissolved organic matter, the only term in the energy budget not measured, was estimated by substracting the other terms in the energy budget from consumption. In laboratory individuals, this ranged from 40 to 80% of absorption (consumption-faeces). A critical review of energy budgets for 6 other species of marine benthic grazers also revealed large amounts of energy unaccounted for that might be attributed to loss of dissolved organic matter.

Keywords

Dissolve Organic Matter Nova Scotia Energy Budget Atlantic Coast Energy Transformation 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 1973

Authors and Affiliations

  • R. J. Miller
    • 1
  • K. H. Mann
    • 1
  1. 1.Marine Ecology Laboratory, Bedford InstituteFisheries Research Board of CanadaDartmouthCanada

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