Planktonic ciliates as food for the scyphozoan Aurelia coerulea : feeding and growth responses of ephyra and metephyra stages

Blooms of the moon jellyfish, Aurelia coerulea, often occur in eutrophic embayments where microzooplankton are abundant. Hence, microzooplankton may play a role in A. coerulea population dynamics. In this study, feeding and growth responses of the ephyra and metephyra stages of A. coerulea were examined on a diet of planktonic ciliates, the main components of microzooplankton. Laboratory experiments indicated that ephyrae actively fed on ciliates and that the central disc diameter increased over the 5-day incubation period. Carbon-specific growth rates estimated from daily increases of central disc diameter increased with carbon-specific prey consumption rates until about 4 µg C ind day−1 and then became saturated. By fitting these results to rectangular hyperbolic equations, the maximum specific growth rates were estimated to be 0.32 day−1 for ciliate prey. However, the central disc diameter of the metephyrae did not increase on a diet of ciliates during the 5-day incubation, even though consumption of prey ciliates was observed. These results suggest that planktonic ciliates serve as a food source for growth at the ephyra stage of A. coerulea and then the contribution to growth decreases at and after the metephyra stage. This prey switch-dependency on the development stage of A. coerulea may be associated with the frequent occurrence of jellyfish blooms in eutrophic embayments.