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- Title
Predation impact of age-0 fish on a copepod population in a Baltic Sea inlet as estimated by two bioenergetics models.
- Authors
Mehner, Thomas
- Abstract
Decreasing spring abundances of the copepod Eurytemora affinis, in a shallow brackish inlet of the Baltic Sea, were compared with calculated consumption of age-0 fish [dominant species herring (Clupea harengus) and perch (Perca fluviatihs)] as determined by two bioenergetics models. Fish and zooplankton populations were sampled at three stations along a salinity gradient of 0.3-8.1%‰ maximum range. Larvae and juveniles of both fish species preferred to prey on adults and developmental stages of E.affinis. Although there were substantial variations in fish density and copepod production across the salinity range, consumption of zooplankton by age-0 fish was never high enough to be a major source of copepod mortality.This finding is an independent confirmation of previous results obtained by direct food-intake measurements in the same region. The low impact of fish predation may be a function of the low individual fish biomass in spring, the increased copepod production and the dominance of the less planktivorous perch, rather than herring, in the less saline waters of the Barther Strom inlet.
- Publication
Journal of Plankton Research, 1996, Vol 18, Issue 8, p1323
- ISSN
0142-7873
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/plankt/18.8.1323