Watzin Mary C
Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 28557, Morehead City, NC, USA.
Oecologia. 1983 Sep;59(2-3):163-166. doi: 10.1007/BF00378833.
When macrofaunal larvae and juveniles recruit into the benthos, they are in the same size catagory as the meiofauna. These small size classes have been consistently ignored in macrofaunal studies despite the increasingly accepted idea that communities are structured not only by interactions between adults, but also by interactions which occurred when the animals were young and in the meiofaunal size catagory. I have tested the effects of turbellarians and other meiofauna on settling macrofaunal larvae and young juveniles in a one-week field experiment. Increased densities of both turbellarians and other meiofauna (tested separately) significantly reduced densities of juvenile spionids and deposit feeders. Syllid abundances increased in high density turbellarian treatments. Nereid polychaete, other predatory polychaete, and bivalve densities showed no significant differences among treatments. By both altering densities and acting selectively on various groups of macrofaunal juveniles, meiofauna may significantly affect the structure of macrofaunal communities.
当大型底栖动物的幼虫和幼体进入底栖生物群落时，它们与小型底栖生物处于相同的大小类别。尽管越来越多的人接受这样的观点，即群落不仅由成体之间的相互作用构建，还由动物幼年且处于小型底栖生物大小类别时发生的相互作用构建，但这些小尺寸类别在大型底栖动物研究中一直被忽视。我在一项为期一周的野外实验中测试了涡虫和其他小型底栖生物对定居的大型底栖动物幼虫和幼体的影响。涡虫和其他小型底栖生物（分别进行测试）密度的增加显著降低了多毛类幼体和沉积食性动物的密度。在高密度涡虫处理中，裂虫的丰度增加。沙蚕多毛类、其他捕食性多毛类和双壳类的密度在各处理之间没有显著差异。通过改变密度并对不同组的大型底栖动物幼体进行选择性作用，小型底栖生物可能会显著影响大型底栖生物群落的结构。
