Senescence and Sexual Selection in a Pelagic Copepod

The ecology of senescence in marine zooplankton is not well known. Here we demonstrate senescence effects in the marine copepod Oithona davisae and show how sex and sexual selection accelerate the rate of ageing in the males. We show that adult mortality increases and male mating capacity and female fertility decrease with age and that the deterioration in reproductive performance is faster for males. Males have a limited mating capacity because they can fertilize < 2 females day−1 and their reproductive life span is 10 days on average. High female encounter rates in nature (>10 day−1), a rapid age-dependent decline in female fertility, and a high mortality cost of mating in males are conducive to the development of male choosiness. In our experiments males in fact show a preference for mating with young females that are 3 times more fertile than 30-day old females. We argue that this may lead to severe male-male competition for young virgin females and a trade-off that favours investment in mate finding over maintenance. In nature, mate finding leads to a further elevated mortality of males, because these swim rapidly in their search for attractive partners, further relaxing fitness benefits of maintenance investments. We show that females have a short reproductive period compared to their average longevity but virgin females stay fertile for most of their life. We interpret this as an adaptation to a shortage of males, because a long life increases the chance of fertilization and/or of finding a high quality partner. The very long post reproductive life that many females experience is thus a secondary effect of such an adaptation

Prey detection and prey capture in copepod nauplii

Copepod nauplii are either ambush feeders that feed on motile prey or they produce a feeding current that entrains prey cells. It is unclear how ambush and feeding-current feeding nauplii perceive and capture prey. Attack jumps in ambush feeding nauplii should not be feasible at low Reynolds numbers due to the thick viscous boundary layer surrounding the attacking nauplius. We use high-speed video to describe the detection and capture of phytoplankton prey by the nauplii of two ambush feeding species (Acartia tonsa and Oithona davisae) and by the nauplii of one feeding-current feeding species (Temora longicornis). We demonstrate that the ambush feeders both detect motile prey remotely. Prey detection elicits an attack jump, but the jump is not directly towards the prey, such as has been described for adult copepods. Rather, the nauplius jumps past the prey and sets up an intermittent feeding current that pulls in the prey from behind towards the mouth. The feeding-current feeding nauplius detects prey arriving in the feeding current but only when the prey is intercepted by the setae on the feeding appendages. This elicits an altered motion pattern of the feeding appendages that draws in the prey

Mating behaviours of Daphnia pulicaria, a cyclic parthenogen: comparisons with copepods

The pre-and post-contact mating behaviours of Daphnia pulicaria are investigated by direct observations of vertical distributions, swimming behaviours and male-female interactions. Analysis of vertical distributions in a 1 m deep, thermally stratified migration chamber reveals that females were always located in the upper layer of the water column but males exhibited a bimodal depth distribution, in which an individual's depth was a function of body length and water temperature. The observed distributions of males may be the result of several interacting pressures; predation avoidance, life-history optimization, and avoidance of assortative mating. Male swimming behaviour was faster and orthogonal to that of females, which is in agreement with the predictions of encounter-rate maximization models. Video recordings of males and females interacting in a 1-litre vessel showed that males both pursued and contacted other males more often than females. Thus, there was no evidence that Daphnia are able to use water-borne chemical signals to locate and identify potential mates. However, the average duration of male-female contacts (13.8 s) was much longer than those between males (1.6 s), suggesting that males can determine the sex of contacted individuals.Daphnia mating behaviour is significantly more complex than previously acknowledged. In contrast to the conventional view of Daphnia males swimming more-or-less randomly and mating with any individual encountered, they exhibit behaviours which increase the potential of mating with females while reducing the risk of predation. Several male behaviours, such as 'scanning' and the performance of area-restricted spirals upon encounter, are similar to those reported for some copepods and may be common to zooplankton that lack sophisticated chemosensory abilities. The possibility that Daphnia may also be able to assess such important female attributes as species and reproductive status is discussed