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Intraspecific variation in palatability and defensive chemistry of brown seaweeds: effects on herbivore fitness

  • Plant Animal Interactions
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Abstract

When offered a choice between brown seaweeds (Phaeophyta) from shallow inshore populations versus deeper offshore populations along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States of America, the herbivorous amphipod Ampithoe longimana consistently preferred plants from the inshore populations. This was the case for three species (Dictyota menstrualis, Spatoglossum schroederi, and Sargassum filipendula) collected from each of a single inshore and offshore site, and for one species (D. menstrualis) collected from each of three inshore and three offshore sites. Bioassay-guided fractionation of chemical crude extracts from D. menstrualis suggested that the relative unpalatability of the offshore plants was due to the lipid-soluble secondary metabolites 4β-hydroxydictyodial A and 18,O-dihydro-4β-hydroxydictyodial A 18-acetate, along with minor compounds that were not fully identified. The inshore-offshore pattern did not appear to result from induction of defenses due to herbivory by mesograzers, as mesograzer densities were higher on the more palatable inshore plants. Herbivore feeding preferences for inshore versus offshore seaweeds matched the effects of those seaweeds on their fitness. When juvenile amphipods were raised on inshore versus offshore tissues of D. menstrualis, amphipod survivorship, growth, and ovulation were significantly suppressed on the offshore compared to the inshore tissues. Few previous investigations have studied intraspecific variance in seaweed palatability. We extend these by showing that between-population differences in palatability can persist for several years and by demonstrating that this variance is chemically based and has dramatic effects on herbivore fitness.

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Acknowledgements

R.B. Taylor was supported by a New Zealand Science and Technology post-doctoral fellowship (UNC701), with additional support provided by NSF grant OCE 95-29784 to M.E. Hay and by the Teasley endowment to Georgia Tech. NOAA's National Undersea Research Center in Wilmington, N.C. facilitated our offshore investigations. We thank Roy Taylor for transport to offshore sites, Pam Brown, Stephan Bullard, Giancarlo Cetrulo and Erik Sotka for help in the field, and Jay Stachowicz for advice in the laboratory. Erik Sotka collected plants from Gray's Reef and also ran the protein assays. We are also grateful to Richard Searles for checking Dictyota menstrualis identifications, Sean Powers for identifying Platynereis dumerilii, and Russell Cole for comments on the manuscript. We thank the Scripps Institution of Oceanography analytical facility for the use of NMR and mass spectrometers.

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  1. Richard B. Taylor

    Present address: Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland, PO Box 349, Warkworth, New Zealand

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 3431 Arendell Street, Morehead City, NC 28557, USA

    Richard B. Taylor & Niels Lindquist

  2. School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230, USA

    Julia Kubanek & Mark E. Hay

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  1. Richard B. Taylor
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Correspondence to Mark E. Hay.

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Taylor, R.B., Lindquist, N., Kubanek, J. et al. Intraspecific variation in palatability and defensive chemistry of brown seaweeds: effects on herbivore fitness. Oecologia 136, 412–423 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1280-x

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