• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Marine Biological Laboratory
    • Visiting Investigators
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Marine Biological Laboratory
    • Visiting Investigators
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Plankton reach new heights in effort to avoid predators

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Gemmell_man_with_figures_Jan 2012.pdf (404.2Kb)
    Date
    2012-01
    Author
    Gemmell, Brad J.  Concept link
    Jiang, Houshuo  Concept link
    Strickler, J. Rudi  Concept link
    Buskey, Edward J.  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/5106
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.0163
    Related Material/Data
    http://youtu.be/FIYHL8euS_I
    http://youtu.be/3mg0KEOrQw4
    Abstract
    The marine environment associated with the air-water interface (neuston) provides an important food source to pelagic organisms where subsurface prey is limited. However, studies on predator-prey interactions within this environment are lacking. Copepods are known to produce strong escape jumps in response to predators but must contend with a low Reynolds number environment where viscous forces limit escape distance. All previous work on copepods interaction with predators has focused on a liquid environment. Here, we describe a novel anti-predator behavior in two neustonic copepod species where individuals frequently exit the water surface and travel many times their own body length through air to avoid predators. Using both field recordings with natural predators and high speed laboratory recordings we obtain detailed kinematics of this behavior, and estimate energetic cost associated with this behavior. We demonstrate that despite losing up to 88% of their initial kinetic energy, copepods which break the water surface travel significantly further than escapes underwater and successfully exit the perceptive field of the predator. This behavior provides an effective defense mechanism against subsurface feeding visual predators and the results provide insight into trophic interactions within the neustonic environment.
    Description
    Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of The Royal Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279 (2012): 2786-2792, doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0163.
    Collections
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    • Visiting Investigators
    Suggested Citation
    Preprint: Gemmell, Brad J., Jiang, Houshuo, Strickler, J. Rudi, Buskey, Edward J., "Plankton reach new heights in effort to avoid predators", 2012-01, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.0163, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/5106
     
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy
    Core Trust Logo