State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China; Xiamen City Key Laboratory of Urban Sea Ecological Conservation and Restoration, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
Third Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Xiamen 361005, China.
Mar Environ Res. 2018 May;136:71-77. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2018.02.005. Epub 2018 Feb 10.
Research on the interaction of primary producers and consumers is crucial for understanding trophic transfer in intertidal food webs. This study explores the association between epilithic and planktonic microalgae, and gut contents of two targeted intertidal gastropods, the periwinkle Echinolittorina radiata (splash zone) and the limpet Cellana toreuma (mid-intertidal zone). With the application of gut fluorescence technique and metabarcoding, this study investigates the quantity and composition of two different sources of microalgae (epilithic and planktonic) and the food ingested by the gastropods. The results suggest the following findings: 1) The planktonic microalgae have higher compositional similarity to the gut contents of grazing gastropods. 2) Increased gut pigment content in C. toreuma is observed with increasing abundance of epilithic and planktonic microalgae. However, there was no such pattern observed for E. radiata. This difference could be attributed to potentially divergent foraging behaviours of the two species that inhabit different shore heights.
研究初级生产者和消费者的相互作用对于理解潮间带食物网中的营养转移至关重要。本研究探讨了附着藻类和浮游微藻，以及两种目标潮间带腹足类动物——贻贝 Echinolittorina radiata（飞溅区）和藤壶 Cellana toreuma（中潮带）的肠道内容物之间的关联。本研究应用肠道荧光技术和代谢组学，研究了两种不同来源的微藻（附着藻类和浮游藻类）的数量和组成，以及腹足类动物所摄取的食物。研究结果表明：1）浮游微藻与摄食性腹足类动物的肠道内容物具有更高的组成相似性。2）随着附着藻类和浮游藻类丰度的增加，藤壶 C. toreuma 的肠道色素含量增加。然而，贻贝 E. radiata 则没有观察到这种模式。这种差异可能归因于栖息在不同潮位的两种物种潜在的觅食行为不同。
