Functional response to Daphnia carinata King when feeding on the filamentous diatom Melosira granulata

Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre

MDFRC item.

The functional response of D. carinata feeding on M. granulata was determined from laboratory trials conducted at 20-22ºC, using a range of food concentrations (F) from 0.14 to 33.8µg (dry weight) mL-1. The functional response could be described by an lvlev model: I (ingestion rate, ng µg-1 h-1) = 200 - 205 × exp (- 0.036 × F). The ingestion rate at the highest food concentration (33.8 µg mL-1) was 140 ng µg-1 h-1, and there was no evidence to suggest that M. granulata either interfered with feeding at high densities or was a difficult food item for D. carinata to handle.