Mass-Scaled Rates of Respiration and Intrinsic Growth in Very Small Invertebrates

Abstract

This review compares rates of oxygen uptake and intrinsic growth of very small invertebrate species near 20 "C with those of larger invertebrate and unicellular animals by means of the allometric relation (rate a Mb where M = mass). Respiration rates of small species of major invertebrate taxa are lower than those extrapolated for larger invertebrates but generally higher than those for protozoans of the same mass. Mass-specific rates of small metazoans and protozoans are lowered accordingly; therefore, their total food and oxygen consumption is likely to be small relative to that of large metazoans in average pelagic and benthic communities where most of the biomass is in large animals. The exponent b for each of the major taxa treated here tends to be near 0.75 rather than close to unity. Thus, the respiration of these taxa is about as mass dependent as that of large animals. Metabolic reduction is set in relation to small adult size as such, and previous inferences about the phylogeny of metazoan metabolism do not seem warranted any more. Intrinsic growth rates of benthic rotifers and marine free-living nematodes are not only lower than those extrapolated for larger invertebrates but fall below those for protozoans of the same mass. Among benthic harpacticoid copepods, a slight reduction relative to mass-scaled large invertebrates is indicated. Pelagic freshwater rotifers do not exhibit this reduction. Intrinsic growth rates of pelagic freshwater cladocerans are independent of adult mass and not clearly higher than those of the few pelagic copepods studied. Future research into the physiological reasons for mass dependence of metabolism and growth should focus on unicellular or small multicellular species because of their short generation times

Size dependence of growth and photosynthesis in diatoms: a synthesis

“…Observations of Williams (1964) for nutrient-sufficient growth at a light level that is likely to b e non-saturating for growth yields a size dependence which is greater than the size dependence of h reported elsewhere (Banse 1982b). However, Banse (1982b) has noted limitations of the Williams (1964) data set, in particular with regard to the limited number of observations used for growth rate calculations. Observations of indicate that the size dependence of growth rate is more pronounced at high (12 W m-2) than at low (2 W m-2) light levels, although all of these light levels are likely to be within the initial, linear portion of the light curve for growth.…”

Pelagic‐benthic coupling: Profundal benthic community response to spring diatom deposition in mesotrophic Lake Erken

“…Biomass was converted to carbon units by assum-, ing that AFDW is 40% of total DW (Feller and Warwick 1988). Respiration of benthic meiofauna (including early instar chironomids) was calculate-d with the relationships between body size (as DW) and respiration rates described by Ivleva (1980) for microcrustaceans and by Banse (1982) for other taxa. Respiration rates were corrected for ambient water temperature according to Duncan and Kle-.…”

Changes in benthic community structure due to clam dredging on the Algarve coast and the importance of seasonal analysis

“…These animals were dried at 608C until constant weight (at least 48 h) and then burned at 4508C for three hours in a mu¥e-furnace. Meiofaunal biomass was calculated following Banse (1982), Knox (1986) and Sprung (1994).…”