Escape performance in the cyclopoid copepod Oithona davisae.

Escaping a predator is one of the keys to success for any living creature. The performance of adults (males, females, and ovigerous females) of the cyclopoid copepod Oithona davisae exposed to an electrical stimulus is analysed as a function of temperature by measuring characteristic parameters associated with the escape movement (distance covered, duration of the appendage movement, mean and maximum escape speeds, Reynolds number). In addition, as a proxy for the efficiency of the motion, the Strouhal number was calculated. The escape performance showed temperature-dependent relationships within each adult state, as well as differences between sexes; additionally, changes owing to the presence of the egg sac were recorded in females. In a broader perspective, the results collected reveal the occurrence of different behavioural adaptations in males and females, adding to the comprehension of the mechanisms by which O. davisae interacts with its environment and shedding new light on the in situ population dynamics of this species.

Chemosensory-Related Genes in Marine Copepods.

Living organisms deeply rely on the acquisition of chemical signals in any aspect of their life, from searching for food, mating and defending themselves from stressors. Copepods, the most abundant and ubiquitous metazoans on Earth, possess diversified and highly specified chemoreceptive structures along their body. The detection of chemical stimuli activates specific pathways, although this process has so far been analyzed only on a relatively limited number of species. Here, in silico mining of 18 publicly available transcriptomes is performed to delve into the copepod chemosensory genes, improving current knowledge on the diversity of this multigene family and on possible physiological mechanisms involved in the detection and analysis of chemical cues. Our study identifies the presence of ionotropic receptors, chemosensory proteins and gustatory receptors in copepods belonging to the Calanoida, Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida orders. We also confirm the absence in these copepods of odorant receptors and odorant-binding proteins agreeing with their insect specificity. Copepods have evolved several mechanisms to survive in the harsh marine environment such as producing proteins to respond to external stimulii. Overall, the results of our study open new possibilities for the use of the chemosensory genes as biomarkers in chemical ecology studies on copepods and possibly also in other marine holozooplankters.

Homeostatic swimming of zooplankton upon crowding: the case of the copepod Centropages typicus.

Crowding has a major impact on the dynamics of many material and biological systems, inducing effects as diverse as glassy dynamics and swarming. While this issue has been deeply investigated for a variety of living organisms, more research remains to be done on the effect of crowding on the behaviour of copepods, the most abundant metazoans on Earth. To this aim, we experimentally investigate the swimming behaviour, used as a dynamic proxy of animal adaptations, of males and females of the calanoid copepod Centropages typicus at different densities of individuals (10, 50 and 100 ind. l-1) by performing three-dimensional single-organism tracking. We find that the C. typicus motion is surprisingly unaffected by crowding over the investigated density range. Indeed, the mean square displacements as a function of time always show a crossover from ballistic to Fickian regime, with poor variations of the diffusion constant on increasing the density. Close to the crossover, the displacement distributions display exponential tails with a nearly density-independent decay length. The trajectory fractal dimension, D3D ≅ 1.5, and the recently proposed 'ecological temperature' also remain stable on increasing the individual density. This suggests that, at least over the range of animal densities used, crowding does not impact on the characteristics of C. typicus swimming motion, and that a homeostatic mechanism preserves the stability of its swimming performance.

Response to salinity and temperature changes in the alien Asian copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus introduced in the Black Sea.

The salinity tolerance and the effect of temperature were studied on the behavior and motor activity of the nonindigenous Indo-Pacific calanoid copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus, first found in Sevastopol Bay (Black Sea) in autumn 2016. According to the index of median lethal salinity (LS50 ), the salinity tolerance range of adult P. marinus collected at 18.0 psu in November 2016 and subsequently reared in the laboratory amounted to 5.0-44.0 psu, independently of the acclimation regime. Females of P. marinus collected in December 2016 at 12.0°C became torpid at 8.0°C, a value typical of winter-spring Black Sea coastal areas. An increase in temperature from 8.0°C to 27.0°C led to an increase in the beat frequency of mouth appendages, swimming speed, and time spent cruising. However, at the same high temperature, the mean cruising speed in the feeding-current feeder P. marinus was 2-fold lower than that of the native, similarly sized cruise feeder Pseudocalanus elongatus. On the contrary, mouthpart beat frequency while cruising was 2-fold higher reaching 80 Hz, due to the creation of feeding currents in P. marinus. The results of our experiments confirm the euryhaline character of P. marinus, and point to an apparent ability to survive cold temperatures in a torpid state. This suggests the possibility of entering an overwintering stage to survive the adverse cold winter-spring environmental conditions of the Black Sea, similarly to the recent thermophilic Indo-Pacific invader Oithona davisae which established a successful population in the same area.

Copepod manipulation of oil droplet size distribution.

Oil spills are one of the most dangerous sources of pollution in aquatic ecosystems. Owing to their pivotal position in the food web, pelagic copepods can provide crucial intermediary transferring oil between trophic levels. In this study we show that the calanoid Paracartia grani can actively modify the size-spectrum of oil droplets. Direct manipulation through the movement of the feeding appendages and egestion work in concert, splitting larger droplets (Ø = 16 µm) into smaller ones (Ø = 4-8 µm). The copepod-driven change in droplet size distribution can increase the availability of oil droplets to organisms feeding on smaller particles, sustaining the transfer of petrochemical compounds among different compartments. These results raise the curtain on complex small-scale interactions which can promote the understanding of oil spills fate in aquatic ecosystems.

Distinctive diffusive properties of swimming planktonic copepods in different environmental conditions.

Suspensions of small planktonic copepods represent a special category in the realm of active matter, as their size falls within the range of colloids, while their motion is so complex that it cannot be rationalized according to basic models of self-propelled particles. Indeed, the wide range of individual variability and swimming patterns resemble the behaviour of much larger animals. By analysing hundreds of three-dimensional trajectories of the planktonic copepod Clausocalanus furcatus, we investigate the possibility of detecting how the motion of this species is affected by different external conditions, such as the presence of food and the effect of gravity. While this goal is hardly achievable by direct inspection of single organism trajectories, we show that this is possible by focussing on simple average metrics commonly used to characterize colloidal suspensions, such as the mean square displacement and the dynamic correlation functions. We find that the presence of food leads to the onset of a clear localization that separates a short-time ballistic from a long-time diffusive regime. Such a benchmark reflects the tendency of C. furcatus to remain temporally feeding in a limited space and disappears when food is absent. Localization is clearly evident in the horizontal plane, but is negligible in the vertical direction, due to the effect of gravity. Our results suggest that simple average descriptors may provide concise and useful information on the swimming properties of planktonic copepods, even though single organism behaviour is strongly heterogeneous.

Disentangling physical and biological drivers of phytoplankton dynamics in a coastal system.

This proof-of-concept study integrates the surface currents measured by high-frequency coastal radars with plankton time-series data collected at a fixed sampling point from the Mediterranean Sea (MareChiara Long Term Ecological Research site in the Gulf of Naples) to characterize the spatial origin of phytoplankton assemblages and to scrutinize the processes ruling their dynamics. The phytoplankton community generally originated from the coastal waters whereby species succession was mainly regulated by biological factors (life-cycle processes, species-specific physiological performances and inter-specific interactions). Physical factors, e.g. the alternation between coastal and offshore waters and the horizontal mixing, were also important drivers of phytoplankton dynamics promoting diversity maintenance by i) advecting species from offshore and ii) diluting the resident coastal community so as to dampen resource stripping by dominant species and thereby increase the numerical importance of rarer species. Our observations highlight the resilience of coastal communities, which may favour their persistence over time and the prevalence of successional events over small time and space scales. Although coastal systems may act differently from one another, our findings provide a conceptual framework to address physical-biological interactions occurring in coastal basins, which can be generalised to other areas.

On the relationship between fractal dimension and encounters in three-dimensional trajectories.

The encounter of individuals-prey, predators and mates-living in the surrounding environment is a fundamental process in the life of an organism. Along with the sensory abilities, this process will be regulated by the movement rules adopted by the individual. In this work we discuss the encounter-enhancement effect due to different natatorial modes by calculating the number of encounters realised by differently convoluted trajectories in two homogeneous distributions of particles. Using numerically generated trajectories representative of specific swimming behaviour, we demonstrate that high values of three-dimensional fractal dimension D(3D)(>1.9) are beneficial only at high concentration, whereas at low concentration less tortuous tracks (D(3D) approximately 1.5) are almost equally efficient. In the light of our results it is possible to better understand the behavioural adaptations evolved by individuals to thrive in their environment.