Size-structured risk assessments govern Daphnia migration
Open Access
- 23 September 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by The Royal Society in Proceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
- Vol. 276 (1655), 331-336
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1088
Abstract
One of the more fascinating phenomena in nature is animal mass migrations and in oceans and freshwaters, diel variations in depth distribution of zooplankton are a phenomenon that has intrigued scientists for more than a century. In our study, we show that zooplankton are able to assess the threat level of ultraviolet radiation and adjust their depth distribution to this level at a very fine tuned scale. Moreover, predation risk induces a size-structured depth separation, such that small individuals, which we show are less vulnerable to predation than larger, make a risk assessment and continue feeding in surface waters during day, offering a competitive release from down-migrating larger animals. Hence, we mechanistically show that such simple organisms as invertebrate zooplankton are able to make individual, size-specific decisions regarding how to compromise between threats from both predators and UV radiation, and adjust their diel migratory patterns accordingly.Keywords
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