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VIMS Articles

Zooplankton

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Marine Biology

The Feeding Ecology And Microbiome Of The Pteropod Limacina Helicina Antarctica, Patricia S. Thibodeau, Bongkeun Song, Carly M. Moreno, Deborah K. Steinberg Jan 2022

The Feeding Ecology And Microbiome Of The Pteropod Limacina Helicina Antarctica, Patricia S. Thibodeau, Bongkeun Song, Carly M. Moreno, Deborah K. Steinberg

VIMS Articles

The pteropod (pelagic snail) Limacina helicina antarctica is a dominant grazer along
the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and plays an important role in regional food web dynamics and biogeochemical cycling. For the first time, we examined the gut microbiome and feeding ecology of L. h. antarctica based on 16S and 18S rRNA gene sequences of gut contents in the WAP during austral summer. Eukaryotic gut contents of L. h. antarctica indicate that this species predominantly feeds on diatoms and dinoflagellates, supplementing its diet with ciliates and foraminifera. Mollicutes bacteria were a consistent component of the gut microbiome. Determining the gut …


Long-Term Observations Of Pteropod Phenology Along The Western Antarctic Peninsula, Patrica S. Thibodeau, Deborah K. Steinberg, Colleen E. Mcbride, John A. Conroy, Hugh W. Ducklow Dec 2020

Long-Term Observations Of Pteropod Phenology Along The Western Antarctic Peninsula, Patrica S. Thibodeau, Deborah K. Steinberg, Colleen E. Mcbride, John A. Conroy, Hugh W. Ducklow

VIMS Articles

Shifts in phenology – annually occurring life history events – have been observed among many marine organisms due to global warming. We examined if phenological changes in the pteropod (pelagic snail) Limacina helicina antarctica have occurred along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, one of the most intensely warming regions on Earth, which would have important implications for regional food web dynamics. Pteropod shell diameters were analyzed from samples collected in the Palmer Antarctica Long-Term Ecological Research (PAL LTER) program year-round sediment trap from 2004 to 2018. There was considerable interannual variability in the time of appearance of a new pteropod cohort, …


Cloud Shadows Drive Vertical Migrations Of Deep-Dwelling Marine Life, Melissa M. Omand, Deborah K. Steinberg, Karen Stamieszkin Jan 2020

Cloud Shadows Drive Vertical Migrations Of Deep-Dwelling Marine Life, Melissa M. Omand, Deborah K. Steinberg, Karen Stamieszkin

VIMS Articles

Many zooplankton and fishes vertically migrate on a diel cycle to avoid predation, moving from their daytime residence in darker, deep waters to prey-rich surface waters to feed at dusk and returning to depth before dawn. Vertical migrations also occur in response to other processes that modify local light intensity, such as storms, eclipses, and full moons. We observed rapid, high-frequency migrations, spanning up to 60 m, of a diel vertically migrating acoustic
scattering layer with a daytime depth of 300 m in the subpolar Northeastern Pacific Ocean. The depth of the layer was significantly correlated, with an ∼5-min lag, …