REU: Fate of Chlorophyll-a During Zooplankton Gut Passage

十年来，实地调查人员一直在使用 桡足类消化系统中的叶绿素衍生色素 作为估计自然摄食率的一种方法， 可以立即对野外捕获的动物进行测量， 从而允许估计喂养中的自然变化， 处理和绕过孵育程序， 不确定性和人工制品。 最近，该方法已被 批评，因为颜料预算在某些情况下不 得出叶绿素的完整解释。 然而，该方法 在海洋生态学方面有着深刻的见解， 尽管预算显示， 吸收色素或其他未知来源的损失是 重要性。 这次调查将试图建立 并建议外地办事处采用新方法 叶绿素衍生的色素在动物肠道的测量。 %%% 海洋中食草动物的进食是一个基本的过程， 不仅是种群动态和个体增长的基础， 也可以转化颗粒物质和释放 微生物食物网利用的溶解成分。 多 多年来的争论已经转向我们无法知道如何 快速的动物在自然界中在海洋中进食， 参与了这个过程。 大多数实验方法涉及 将动物关在各种大小的容器中， 天然食品供应。 由捕捉引入的错误， 限制动物几乎总是被用来解释为什么 结果不是很清楚。 一种方法，它不 将动物置于容器中被认为是重要的一步 大约10年前。 毫不奇怪，这种方法已经被 在描述进食模式和速度时非常有用 海洋中食草动物的自然种群。 还已经 显示出一些缺陷，这项调查将 探索以试图完善我们对该方法的理解 并提出改变建议，使结果更加量化。

For a decade field investigators have used the concentration of chlorophyll-derived pigments in the digestive system of copepods as a way of estimating natural feeding rates because the measurement can be done immediately on field caught animals, thereby allowing estimates of natural variance in the feeding process and bypassing incubation procedures which result in uncertainty and artifacts. Recently, the method has been criticized because pigment budgets on some occasions do not arrive at a full accounting for chlorophyll. However, the method has been so insightful in oceanic ecology that it continues to be used in spite of the contention that budgets indicate assimilation of pigment or other unknown source of loss is of major importance. This investigation will try to establish sources of error and suggest new methodology for field measurements of chlorophyll-derived pigments in animal guts. %%% Feeding by grazers in the sea is a fundamental process which underlies not only population dynamics and individual growth, but also transformation of particulate material and release of dissolved components utilized by microbial food webs. Much debate over the years has turned on our inability to know how fast animals feed in nature in the sea and how much variation is involved in the process. Most experimental approaches involve confining animals in containers of various sizes with known or natural food supplies. The errors introduced by catching and confining the animals are almost always invoked as reasons why the results are not very clear cut. A method that does not subject the animals to containers was considered a important step ahead almost a decade ago. Not surprisingly, the method has been shown to be very useful in describing feeding patterns and rates of natural populations of grazers in the sea. It has also been shown to have some deficiencies which this investigation will explore in an attempt to refine our understanding of the method and suggest changes that will make results more quantitative.