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| Titel |
Copepod community growth rates in relation to body size, temperature, and food availability in the East China Sea: a test of metabolic theory of ecology |
| VerfasserIn |
K. Y. Lin, A. R. Sastri, G. C. Gong, C. H. Hsieh |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1726-4170
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Biogeosciences ; 10, no. 3 ; Nr. 10, no. 3 (2013-03-20), S.1877-1892 |
| Datensatznummer |
250018161
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/bg-10-1877-2013.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Zooplankton play an essential role in marine food webs, and understanding how
community-level growth rates of zooplankton vary in the field is critical for
predicting how marine ecosystem function may vary in the face of
environmental changes. Here, we used the artificial cohort method to examine
the effects of temperature, body size, and chlorophyll concentration (a proxy
for food) on weight-specific growth rates for copepod communities in the East
China Sea. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that copepod community
growth rates can be described by the metabolic theory of ecology (MTE),
linking spatio-temporal variation of copepod growth rate with temperature and
their body size. Our results generally agree with predictions made by the MTE
and demonstrate that weight-specific growth rates of copepod communities in
our study area are positively related with temperature and negatively related
to body size. However, the regression coefficients of body size do not
approach the theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we find that the deviation
from the MTE predictions may be partly attributed to the effect of food
availability (which is not explicitly accounted for by the MTE). In addition,
significant difference in the coefficients of temperature and body size
exists among taxonomic groups. Our results suggest that considering the
effects of food limitation and taxonomy is necessary to better understand
copepod growth rates under in situ conditions, and such effects on the
MTE-based predictions need further investigation. |
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