TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of incorporating age-specific traits of zooplankton into a marine ecosystem model
AU - Tanioka, Tatsuro
AU - Matsumoto, Katsumi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/1/24
Y1 - 2018/1/24
N2 - Morphological, physiological, behavioral, and life-history traits of zooplankton are vital when assessing their roles in marine ecosystem. A recent study has shown that certain traits of marine copepod change with life stage, where fast growing young nauplii have low N:P ratio, selecting for P rich-food and excreting at high N:P; while older, slow growing copepodites are characterized by higher N:P, selecting for N-rich food and excreting at low N:P. We developed a simple model for incorporating these age-specific traits within the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model framework to test the importance of these traits in the marine ecosystem. Our results suggest that copepod's community growth is limited by different factors in different life stages: nauplii population is limited by prey's food quality; copepodites population is limited by food quality as well as aging-related reduction in assimilation rate. We also show that age-specific traits of zooplankton have impacts on nutrient cycling especially on the elemental stoichiometry of large particulate organic matter.
AB - Morphological, physiological, behavioral, and life-history traits of zooplankton are vital when assessing their roles in marine ecosystem. A recent study has shown that certain traits of marine copepod change with life stage, where fast growing young nauplii have low N:P ratio, selecting for P rich-food and excreting at high N:P; while older, slow growing copepodites are characterized by higher N:P, selecting for N-rich food and excreting at low N:P. We developed a simple model for incorporating these age-specific traits within the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model framework to test the importance of these traits in the marine ecosystem. Our results suggest that copepod's community growth is limited by different factors in different life stages: nauplii population is limited by prey's food quality; copepodites population is limited by food quality as well as aging-related reduction in assimilation rate. We also show that age-specific traits of zooplankton have impacts on nutrient cycling especially on the elemental stoichiometry of large particulate organic matter.
KW - Ecological stoichiometry
KW - Ecosystem model
KW - Food quality
KW - Ocean biogeochemistry
KW - Zooplankton
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.11.024
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.11.024
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85037535376
SN - 0304-3800
VL - 368
SP - 257
EP - 264
JO - Ecological Modelling
JF - Ecological Modelling
ER -