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Feeding behaviour of the mussel, Mytilus edulis: responses to variations in quantity and organic content of the seston

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

B. L. Bayne ,
J. I. P. Iglesias ,
A. J. S. Hawkins ,
E. Navarro ,
M. Heral  and
J. M. Deslous-Paoli
B. L. Bayne
Affiliation:
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, The Hoe, Plymouth, PL1 3DH.
J. I. P. Iglesias
Affiliation:
Departomento de Biologia Animal y Genetica, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Apartado 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain.
A. J. S. Hawkins
Affiliation:
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, The Hoe, Plymouth, PL1 3DH.
E. Navarro
Affiliation:
Departomento de Biologia Animal y Genetica, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Apartado 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain.
M. Heral
Affiliation:
IFREMER, BP133, 17390 La Tremblade, France
J. M. Deslous-Paoli
Affiliation:
IFREMER, BP133, 17390 La Tremblade, France
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Extract

Mussels were fed four concentrations of seston (between 0·99 and 10·3 mg total seston I−1), comprising three levels of organic content (71·9, 63·6 and 40·8%), made up from natural silt and two species of cultured phytoplankton. Two of the seston concentrations were below, and two above, the threshold at which pseudofaeces were produced. Measurements of physiological traits (filtration rates, pseudofaeces production, selection efficiency, absorption efficiency, absorption rates and rates of oxygen consumption) were made after 2 days and, for two of the seston concentrations, also after 12 days. When fed at a high concentration of seston of low organic content, the mussels increased their filtration rate, rejected a higher proportion of filtered material as pseudofaeces, and increased the efficiency with which filtered matter of higher organic content was selected for ingestion; this resulted in a constancy of the relationship between ingestion rate and the concentration of particulate organic matter, regardless of differences in seston organic content. Between 2 and 12 d, the mussels increased absorption rates for organics, primarily by increasing absorption efficiency, both for total organics and for the carbohydrate component of the diet. We suggest that these responses to changes in the food environment comprise physiological adjustments which result in higher net rates of absorption than would be predicted from considerations only of the organic/inorganic ratio of the suspended particles and assumptions of a non-compensating feeding behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , November 1993 , pp. 813 - 829
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1993

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