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Science 6 June 1986:
Vol. 232. no. 4755, pp. 1245 - 1247
DOI: 10.1126/science.232.4755.1245
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Articles

Distribution of and Feeding by the Copepod Pseudocalanus Under Fast Ice During the Arctic Spring

R. J. CONOVER 1, A. W. HERMAN 2, S. J. PRINSENBERG 2, and L. R. HARRIS 1

1 Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Marine Ecology Laboratory, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B2Y 4A2, Canada.
2 Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Atlantic Oceanograpic Laboratory, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B2Y 4A2, Canada.

The arctic copepod Pseudocalanus can be highly aggregated in the first few centimeters under landfast ice during spring in concentrations up to 10/6 per cubic meter. Chlorophyll-derived pigments in the water, the abundance of animals, and their gut pigment index show fluctuations that may be tidally related. Short-term grazing experiments performed at -1.7°C, in which ice algae was used as food, yielded feeding rates comparable to the highest known for the genus. Arctic Pseudocalanus seem to feed opportunistically near the ice-water interface, either directly on the attached epontic (under ice) algae or as it erodes from the ice.

Submitted on November 26, 1985
Accepted on March 21, 1986


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Visual predators and the diel vertical migration of copepods under Arctic sea ice during the midnight sun.
M. Fortier, L. Fortier, H. Hattori, H. Saito, and L. Legendre (2001)
J. Plankton Res. 23, 1263-1278
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