Ciliate Predation on Heterotrophic Nanoplankton: A Significant Link in Planktonic Food Webs?

纤毛虫对异养纳米浮游生物的捕食：浮游食物网中的重要环节？

• 批准号: 8700013
• 负责人: Peter Verity
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 1987
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1987-04-01 至 1989-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8700013&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ciliate; Predation; Heterotrophic; Nanoplankton; Significant

This study concerns the general question of how food material is transferred from plants (which initially manufacture the food), to herbivores and carnivores in the sea. Recently, the accepted view of this process has undergone a healthy reexamination. The simple notion that the food material passes mainly to relatively large grazers and then to harvestable organisms such as fish has been supplanted by the recognition that much of the plant material produced is consumed by a variety of microscopic organisms in what has been termed the microbial loop. This study will employ several well conceived laboratory studies to analyze the role of certain widespread marine micro- organisms known as ciliates in the flow of food energy in this biological "loop". The results will directly advance our understanding of marine food webs.

这项研究涉及的一般问题是如何食物材料从植物（最初制造食物）转移到海洋中的食草动物和食肉动物。最近，对这一进程的公认观点进行了有益的重新审查。过去认为食物主要是通过相对较大的食草动物，然后是可收获的生物，如鱼类，这种简单的观念已经被这样的认识所取代：生产的大部分植物材料被称为微生物循环的各种微生物所消耗。这项研究将采用几个精心构思的实验室研究，以分析某些广泛分布的海洋微生物的作用，被称为纤毛虫在流动的食物能量在这个生物“循环”。研究结果将直接促进我们对海洋食物网的理解。