Quantifying the effect of variability in food quality on energy transfer and secondary production in a coastal marine food web

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Zooplankton represent the key link between production at the base of marine food webs and production at higher trophic levels (e.g. fish). However, to date, oceanographers have been unable to routinely quantify zooplankton growth and production under natural conditions in the field. Moreover, the factors that cause zooplankton production to vary in space and time remain poorly understood. Although it has long been held that variations in the amount food available to zooplankton should regulate their production, field evidence supporting this claim remains surprisingly weak. More recently, studies have demonstrated that variations in food quality may be as important as (or even more important than) variations in total food abundance when it comes to zooplankton production. However, such studies have generally been conducted under laboratory conditions, and thus the potential for such effects to occur in the field remain poorly explored.