Marine snow, formed through the aggregation of phytoplankton and other organic matter, can be consumed by various types of zooplankton, affecting both planktonic trophic dynamics and the export of carbon to depth. This study focuses on how two factors-phytoplankton growth phase and species-affect copepod feeding on marine snow. To do this, we conducted a series of grazing experiments using gut pigment and stable isotope methods to quantify the ingestion of the copepod, Calanus pacificus, on both marine snow aggregates and individual phytoplankton. Results demonstrate that marine snow can represent a substantial food source for copepods, comparable to rates on individual phytoplankton. Moreover, we found that both the overall ingestion and the relative ingestion of aggregates vs. individual phytoplankton depended on phytoplankton growth phase for experiments conducted with the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii. Although copepods consumed aggregates composed of Skeletonema marinoi at similar rates as those composed of T. weissflogii, no effect of growth phase was observed for S. marinoi. These findings suggest that marine snow can be an important source of nutrition for copepods, but that its role in planktonic food webs may differ depending on the phytoplankton community composition and the stage of phytoplankton blooms.
Keywords: biological pump; marine snow; trophic dynamics; zooplankton.
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press.