The harvester ants Veromessor pergandei and Pogonomyrmex californicus modify the highly localized seed shadow of the Sonoran Desert ephemeral Datura discolor (Solanaceae) through (1) attraction to food bodies attached to seeds released beneath the parent plant, (2) immediate transport of disapores to the ant nest, (3) subsequent removal of the food body in underground granaries, and (4) final expulsion of intact seeds onto the colony midden. D. discolor seed without food bodies are not attractive to ants and remain beneath the parent canopy. At Nude Wash, California, USA, diaspore removal distances are generally small, averaging 2.3 m away from the nearest D. discolor canopy in March—May 1977. Two lines of evidence indicate that this limited transport has a large effect on seed detection and utilization by rodents: (1) seeds placed in ant—proof dishes beneath the D. discolor canopy were about 10 times more likely to be removed by nocturnally foraging rodents than seeds placed in locations similar to those where ants locate their nests; (2) using D. discolor as bait, significantly more rodents were trapped beneath the plant canopy than in open areas where seeds were transported by ants. Manipulation of the density of D. discolor seed in these tests suggests that seed utilization by rodents is distance—responsive to the parent canopy rather than dependent on the density of seeds. Disapore analyses indicate that investment in the transport system is relatively small and represents <5% of the total investment in seeds.
Many intertidal seaweeds show a tremendous gradient of morphological form ranging from spatially separated thalli, to thalli that are aggregated into dense turfs.Aggregation of seaweeds into turfs decreases productivity per g organic weight due to crowding of thalli but increases resistance to desiccation.The intertidal distribution of the turf growth form is correlated with the intensity of desiccation stress.Also turfs transplanted into tide pools developed the non-turf morphology, while non-turfs transplanted to emergent substrate either developed the turf form or died.The turf growth form is energetically expensive; apparent productivity of turfs was 23 to 48 % less than that of individuals.Increasing light and nutrients available to turfs by separating the thalli increased apparent productivity by 36 to 113 %.We tested the hypothesis that these turfs minimize energetic costs of this aggregated growth form through the spatial partitioning of photosynthetic and respirative activity.The lower portions of turfs showed less apparent photosynthesis than the upper portions (reductions of 37 to 85 %); however, this spatial partitioning was also found in the individual forms (37 to 63 % reductions) of these relatively simple seaweeds.Spatial differentiation of respiration was similar in turfs and nonturfs.The seaweeds, examined are able to alter the extent of thalli compaction in accordance with varying levels of environmental stress.This phenotypic plasticity allows seaweeds to adopt morphological features that maximize fitness in a wide variety of habitats without being developmentally committed.
MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 119:177-189 (1995) - doi:10.3354/meps119177 Distribution, density, and sequestration of host chemical defenses by the specialist nudibranch Tritonia hamnerorum found at high densities on the sea fan Gorgonia ventalina Cronin, G., Hay, M. E., Fenical, W., Lindquist, N. The dendronotid nudibranch Tritonia hamnerorum was observed on some reefs in the Florida Keys, USA, at very high densities during the summer of 1992. T. hamnerorum specializes on the sea fan Gorgonia ventalina and sequesters the furano-germacrene julieannafuran from its host; this compound effectively protects the nudibranch from consumption by the common predatory reef fish Thalassoma bifasciatum. T. hamnerorum densities were extremely high at some locations, with as many as 1700 nudibranchs found on a single G. ventalina colony. At high densities, nudibranch feeding killed large areas on some sea fan colonies by stripping all tissue from portions of the sea fan and allowing filamentous algae and other epibionts to colonize. The density of T. hamnerorum on G. ventalina varied greatly on scales of centimeters, meters and kilometers. High density patches of nudibranchs on individual sea fans were usually composed of equivalent-sized nudibranchs. These observations suggest that pelagic veligers have an incredible capability to find and settle synchronously on one portion of a sea fan or that the larvae or juveniles hatch from egg masses and develop without leaving the sea fan. This study adds to a growing number of marine examples suggesting that feeding specialization occurs primarily among small, sedentary consumers that deter or escape predators by associating with defended hosts. Chemical defenses . Feeding specialization . Gorgonia ventalina . Nudibranch . Sequestration . Tritonia hamnerorum . Tritrophic relation Full text in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 119. Publication date: March 23, 1995 Print ISSN:0171-8630; Online ISSN:1616-1599 Copyright © 1995 Inter-Research.
Coral reefs are in dramatic global decline due to a host of local- and global-scale anthropogenic disturbances that suppress corals and enhance seaweeds. This decline is exacerbated, and recovery made less likely, due to over-fishing of herbivores that normally limit seaweed effects on corals. Seaweeds were known to suppress coral reproduction and recruitment, but in a recent study, we demonstrated that numerous seaweeds also directly poison corals via lipid-soluble allelochemicals transferred during contact. These allelopathic interactions may limit reef recovery once seaweeds proliferate and commonly contact remaining corals. Other recent studies suggest that seaweeds may also damage corals by enhancing coral disease or via release of water-soluble compounds that stimulate damaging microbes. For some of these mechanisms, cause versus effect is not yet clear. Here, we suggest that these different mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, may interact in context-dependent ways, but need to be assessed under ecologically realistic field conditions where flow may limit impacts of some mechanisms.
Prey traits linking consumer diversity to ecosystem function remain poorly understood. On tropical coral reefs, herbivores promote coral dominance by suppressing competing macroalgae, but the roles of herbivore identity and diversity, macroalgal defenses, and their interactions in affecting reef resilience and function are unclear. We studied adjacent pairs of no‐take marine reserves and fished areas on reefs in Fiji and found that protected reefs supported 7–17× greater biomass, 2–3× higher species richness of herbivorous fishes, and 3–11× more live coral cover than did fished reefs. In contrast, macroalgae were 27–61× more abundant and 3–4× more species‐rich on fished reefs. When we transplanted seven common macroalgae from fished reefs into reserves they were rapidly consumed, suggesting that rates of herbivory (ecosystem functioning) differed inside vs. outside reserves. We then video‐recorded feeding activity on the same seven macroalgae when transplanted into reserves, and assessed the functional redundancy vs. complementarity of herbivorous fishes consuming these macroalgae. Of 29 species of larger herbivorous fishes on these reefs, only four species accounted for 97% of macroalgal consumption. Two unicornfish consumed a range of brown macroalgae, a parrotfish consumed multiple red algae, and a rabbitfish consumed a green alga, with almost no diet overlap among these groups. The two most chemically rich, allelopathic algae were each consumed by a single, but different, fish species. This striking complementarity resulted from herbivore species differing in their tolerances to macroalgal chemical and structural defenses. A model of assemblage diet breadth based on our feeding observations predicted that high browser diversity would be required for effective control of macroalgae on Fijian reefs. In support of this model, we observed strong negative relationships between herbivore diversity and macroalgal abundance and diversity across the six study reefs. Our findings indicate that the total diet breadth of the herbivore community and the probability of all macroalgae being removed from reefs by herbivores increases with increasing herbivore diversity, but that a few critical species drive this relationship. Therefore, interactions between algal defenses and herbivore tolerances create an essential role for consumer diversity in the functioning and resilience of coral reefs.
Risk of larval mortality is a critical component of models and debates concerning the ecology and evolution of the differing reproductive characteristics exhibited by marine invertebrates. In these discussions, predation often is assumed to be a major source of larval mortality. Despite limited empirical support, most marine larvae are thought to be palatable and broadly susceptible to generalist predators. Previous studies of larval-planktivore interactions have focused primarily on larvae that typically feed, grow, and develop for weeks to months in the plankton. Such planktotrophic species commonly produce large numbers of small larvae that disperse over vast distances. In contrast, the nonfeeding lecithotrophic larvae from sessile invertebrates that brood are often large and conspicuous, lack morphological defenses, and have limited dispersal distances because they typically are competent to settle minutes to hours after spawning. Interactions between lecithotrophic larvae and consumers are not well studied. This has limited the ability of previous authors to test broad generalities about marine larvae. We show that brooded larvae of Caribbean sponges (11 species) and gorgonians (three species) as well as brooded larvae of temperate hydroids (two species) and a bryozoan are unpalatable to co-occurring fishes. In contrast, brooded larvae of temperate ascidians (three species), a temperate sponge, and Caribbean hard corals (three species) are readily consumed by fishes, as are larvae from four of six species of synchronous broadcast-spawning gorgonians from the Florida Keys. Frequencies of survivorship for larvae attacked and rejected by fishes were high and statistically indistinguishable from frequencies for unattacked control larvae. Frequency of metamorphosis (when it occurred) of rejected larvae never differed significantly from that of unattacked control larvae. Assays testing for larval vs. adult chemical defenses for five species with distasteful larvae showed that larvae of all five species were chemically distasteful to fishes, whereas only three of five adult extracts deterred fish feeding. A comparison of larval palatability among chemically rich taxa showed that brooded larvae were significantly more likely to be unpalatable (86% of the species tested) than larvae of broadcasters (33%), and that palatable larvae were rarely released during the day (23%) while unpalatable larvae usually were (89%). Additionally, the frequency of bright coloration was high (60%) for unpalatable larvae and low (0%) for palatable larvae, suggesting that unpalatable larvae often may be aposematically colored. Results of this broad survey cast doubt on the widely accepted notion that virtually all marine larvae are suitable prey for most generalized planktivores. Among species that do not chemically or physically protect larvae against fishes, selection appears to favor the release of larvae at night, or the production of smaller more numerous offspring that grow and develop at sea as a way of escaping consumer-rich benthic habitats. Because distasteful larvae are not similarly constrained, distasteful species should exhibit reproductive and larval characteristics selected more by the fitness-related consequences of larval development mode and dispersal distance than by the necessity of avoiding benthic predators.
Species-specific enemies may promote prey coexistence through negative distance-and density-dependent survival of juveniles near conspecific adults.We tested this mechanism by transplanting juvenile-sized fragments of the brooding corals Pocillopora damicornis and Seriatopora hystrix 3, 12, 24 and 182 cm up-and down-current of conspecific adults and monitoring their survival and condition over time.We also characterized the spatial distribution of P. damicornis and S. hystrix within replicate plots on three Fijian reef flats and measured the distribution of small colonies within 2 m of larger colonies of each species.Juvenile-sized transplants exhibited no differences in survivorship as a function of distance from adult P. damicornis or S. hystrix.Additionally, both P. damicornis and S. hystrix were aggregated rather than overdispersed on natural reefs.However, a pattern of juveniles being aggregated near adults while larger (and probably older) colonies were not suggests that greater mortality near large adults could occur over longer periods of time or that size-dependent mortality was occurring.While we found minimal evidence of greater mortality of small colonies near adult conspecifics in our transplant experiments, we did document hot-spots of species-specific corallivory.We detected spatially localized and temporally persistent predation on P. damicornis by the territorial triggerfish Balistapus undulatus.This patchy predation did not occur for S. hystrix.This variable selective regime in an otherwise more uniform environment could be one mechanism maintaining diversity of corals on Indo-Pacific reefs.
MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 119:265-273 (1995) - doi:10.3354/meps119265 Effects of storage and extraction procedures on yields of lipophilic metabolites from the brown seaweeds Dictyota ciliolata and D. menstrualis Cronin, G., Lindquist, N., Hay, M. E., Fenical, W. Investigations focused on the ecological roles of marine secondary metabolites have become common, but marine ecologists have rarely assessed how methodologies used in sample preparation affect the extractability and stability of secondary metabolites and, thus, measurements of intraspecific and interspecific compound variance. We assessed various procedures for storing, drying, and extracting samples of 2 chemically defended brown seaweeds Dictyota ciliolata and D. menstrualis. These plants contain the diterpenoid alcohols pachydictyol A, dictyol B acetate, and dictyol E that are relatively stable under all test conditions. In contrast, the related diterpenoid dialdehyde, dictyodial, decomposed when plant tissues or crude extracts were stored at -25*C for 13 to 27 wk or when tissues or extracts were freeze-dried or subjected to high vacuum (<0.01 torr), methods that are commonly used in studies of marine chemical ecology. The stability of dictyodial was species-specific, degrading more in D. ciliolata than in D. menstrualis. During a few extractions, dictyodial reacted with methanol (MeOH) to yield an artifact resulting from the addition of 2 molecules of MeOH per molecule of dictyodial. A mixture of 2:1 dichloromethane (DCM) and MeOH tended to extract the lipophilic secondary metabolites better than MeOH or DCM alone. Metabolites were also afforded some protection against degradation when fresh tissue was submerged in 2:1 DCM:MeOH during storage at -25*C. Results of this investigation indicate that storage, extraction, and quantification methods need to be optimized for analyses of individual compounds and that even identical compounds can behave differently when they occur in different species. Chemical ecology . Dictyols . Dictyota . Extraction . HPLC . Methods . Secondary metabolites . Terpenes Full text in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 119. Publication date: March 23, 1995 Print ISSN:0171-8630; Online ISSN:1616-1599 Copyright © 1995 Inter-Research.
