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Influence of temperature and food concentration on body size, weight and lipid content of two Calanoid copepod species

  • Part Four: Marine Plankton
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Abstract

Two species of Copepoda Temora longicornis (Müller) and Pseudocalanus elongatus (Boeck) were cultured continuously in the laboratory. Four and three generations, respectively, were raised at 16 different combinations of temperature and food concentration. Prosome length and ash-free dry weight were measured in the adult stage and in Pseudocalanus also in copepodite stage I, and the relation between length and weight was established. In Pseudocalanus also the relative amount of lipid was estimated.

Prosome length and length-specific body weight (condition factor) were positively correlated with food concentration. Lipid content in Pseudocalanus was also strongly affected by the concentration of food.

Prosome length was negatively correlated with temperature. However, length-specific body weight in Temora was positively correlated with temperature. Therefore, at higher temperature Temora was smaller, but heavier per unit body length. In Pseudocalanus a similar but less significant influence of temperature on length-specific weight was found; lipid content was not significantly influenced by the temperature.

Females of Temora had larger length-specific weights than males. In Pseudocalanus the opposite was found, coinciding with a higher lipid content in males than in females.

It is discussed that at natural concentrations of phytoplankton body size and weight of copepods are reduced in the North Sea during the major part of the growing-season.

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  1. Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB, P. O. Box 59, Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands

    W. C. M. Klein Breteler & S. R. Gonzalez

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  1. W. C. M. Klein Breteler
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  2. S. R. Gonzalez
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Breteler, W.C.M.K., Gonzalez, S.R. Influence of temperature and food concentration on body size, weight and lipid content of two Calanoid copepod species. Hydrobiologia 167, 201–210 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00026306

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