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Changes In Feeding And Crawling Rates Of Hydrobia Truncata (Prosobranchia: Hydrobiidae) In Response To Sedimentary Chlorophyll-A And Recently Egested Sediment, Valery E. Forbes, Glenn R. Lopez

Valery Forbes Publications

Experiments combining fluorescent particle tracer techniques with time-lapse video recording demonstrated that the gastropod Hydrobia truncata decreases crawling rate on patches rich in chlorophyll-a, while maintaining a constant feeding rate as sedimentary chlorophyll-a content varies. In contrast, H. truncata decreases feeding rate but does not change crawling rate upon encounter with patches of recently egested sediment. Depression of feeding rate is less pronounced if the egested material is enriched in chlorophyll-a. For deposit feeders inhabiting highly reworked sediments, the majority of available material may consist of sediment that has been recently egested. For an animal that responds negatively to recently …