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Size-structured risk assessments govern Daphnia migration.

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Author

Summary, in English

One of the more fascinating phenomena in nature is animal mass migrations and in oceans and freshwaters, diel variations in depth distribution of zooplankton are a phenomenon that has intrigued scientists for more than a century. In our study, we show that zooplankton are able to assess the threat level of ultraviolet radiation and adjust their depth distribution to this level at a very fine tuned scale. Moreover, predation risk induces a size-structured depth separation, such that small individuals, which we show are less vulnerable to predation than larger, make a risk assessment and continue feeding in surface waters during day, offering a competitive release from down-migrating larger animals. Hence, we mechanistically show that such simple organisms as invertebrate zooplankton are able to make individual, size-specific decisions regarding how to compromise between threats from both predators and UV radiation, and adjust their diel migratory patterns accordingly.

Publishing year

2009

Language

English

Pages

331-336

Publication/Series

Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences

Volume

276

Issue

1655

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Society Publishing

Topic

  • Ecology

Keywords

  • ultraviolet radiation
  • Daphnia
  • zooplankton
  • migration
  • risk
  • predation

Status

Published

Research group

  • Aquatic Ecology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1471-2954