High food quality and low predation pressure enhance the trophic transfer efficiency of plankton in the marginal seas of northern West Pacific
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Su, Min-Sian
Abstract
Trophic transfer efficiency in plankton (TTE) describes the production rate ratio between zooplankton and phytoplankton (TTE=ZP⁄PP, where ZP is zooplankton production rate and PP is phytoplankton production rate). TTE strongly shapes the trophic structure in marine ecosystems. However, it remains unclear what factors affect TTE in natural systems. In this study, we conducted onboard incubation with the artificial cohort method to measure zooplankton production rate (ZP) and the C14 assimilation method to measure phytoplankton production rate (PP) simultaneously. We then estimated in situ TTE = ZP/PP and investigated the factors including seston C:N ratio, fish larvae density, temperature, nutrients, and light affecting the variation of TTE in the marginal seas of northern West Pacific from 2009 to 2013. Specifically, we tested the following hypotheses: (i) Decreasing seston C:N ratio (proxy for food quality) enhances the TTE by stimulating zooplankton growth; (ii) Increasing fish larvae density reduces the TTE because of increasing predation pressure; (iii) Increasing temperature enhances the TTE by stimulating zooplankton feeding activities. Additionally, we tested the factors indirectly affecting the TTE by affecting food nutritional quality. (iv) Increasing nutrients enhance the TTE by decreasing seston C:N ratio; (v) Increasing light intensity lessens the TTE by enhancing seston C:N ratio when nutrients are limited. The results of GLM model including both seston C:N ratio and fish larvae density gave best correlation with the TTE. Our results demonstrated that, the increases in food nutritional quality for zooplankton, together with the decreases in the predation pressure, may enhance the TTE in the marginal seas of northern West Pacific.
Subjects
營養傳遞效率
能量傳遞效率
人造年級群方法
碳14吸收法
食物品質
營養結構
浮游生物
SDGs
Type
thesis
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