Bacterivorous Ciliates in Marine Food Webs: Lipid Chemistryand Role in Copepod Nutrition

食菌纤毛虫是浮游生物的重要组成部分， 食物网。 它们可以消耗大量的细菌 生产，并转换材料是低的基本 脂质（细菌生物量和碎屑）转化为富含脂质的纤毛虫 生物质。 消费者如何从中获得营养 纤毛虫，它们在生物化学中扮演什么角色？ 纤毛碳的转化 研究纤毛虫脂质的性质及其命运， 海洋食物网的重要性哈维博士和麦克马纳斯将： - 识别和量化纤毛虫脂质，特别是那些 可能是有用的组特异性生物标志物在营养 问题研究 - 检查纤毛虫饮食中的脂质来源， 纤毛虫是如何同化和改变食物中的脂类的。 - 测量纤毛虫的同化和转化 它们的主要消费者之一桡足类。 该项目将生化测量与喂养相结合 实验 一些纤毛虫的详细脂质分析 物种将首先提供更多的数据， 他们已经观察到的独特化合物。 他们将 详细测量饮食对脂质含量的作用， 几种代表性食菌纤毛虫的分布。 最后，他们将进行深入的喂养实验， 随着纤毛虫脂质的掺入和转化， 通过吃桡足类 这些结果将提供大量的新信息， 食菌纤毛虫在海洋食物网中的作用， 特别是它们在桡足类营养中的重要性。

Bacterivorous ciliates are an important component of planktonic food webs. They can consume a large proportion of bacterial production, and convert material that is low in essential lipids (bacterial biomass and detritus) into lipid-rich ciliate biomass. How do consumers benefit nutritionally from these ciliates, and what role do they play in the biochemical transformation of ciliate carbon? To investigate the nature of ciliate lipids and their fate and importance in the marine food web Dr. Harvey and McManus will: - identify and quantify ciliate lipids, especially ones that may be useful as group-specific biomarkers in trophic studies. - examine sources of lipids in the ciliate diet and follow how ciliates assimilate and modify dietary lipids. - measure the assimilation and transformation of ciliate lipids by one of their principal consumers, copepods. This project combines biochemical measurements with feeding experiments. Detailed lipid analysis of a number of ciliate species will first provide additional data on the ubiquity of the unique compounds they have already observed. They will measure in detail the role of diet on lipid content and distribution of several representative bacterivorous ciliates. Finally,they will conduct in-depth feeding experiments to follow the incorporation and transformation of ciliate lipids by grazing copepods. These results will provide substantial new information on the role of bacterivorous ciliates in the marine food web, especially their importance in copepod nutrition.