Starvation of the Respiratory Metabolism and Locomotion of Aurelia aurita s.l. Ephyrae

Blooms of the scyphozoan jellyfish Aurelia aurita are greatly regulated by the survival rate of planktonic ephyrae. The ecophysiology of ephyrae is poorly studied compared with polyps and medusae. As extremely strong starvation resistance and recovery capability of A. aurita ephyrae may due to its low metabolic rate as well as starvation may reduce the swimming ability of ephyrae which may lead to the higher predation loss, the effects of temperature and starvation on their respiration and pulsation rates were examined. In this study, ephyrae under different starvation conditions were measured by a fluorescence-based DO meter after 72 h incubation. And the pulsation rates were measured at every 10-d interval in 1-liter plastic bottle by a hand-held counter. The results showed that the mean respiration rates of newly released ephyrae were 0.24, 0.24 and 0.19 μl O2 ephyra-1 d-1 at 15°C, 12°C and 9°C, respectively, and the rates tended to decrease with increasing starvation duration. Carbon weight-specific respiration rates did not change significantly with starvation duration. The dry weight-specific respiration rates of newly released A. aurita ephyrae (i.e., 11.7-14.6 μl O2 mg DW-1 d-1) were nearly one order of magnitude lower than the rates for planktonic larvae of other taxa (e.g., molluscs, crustaceans and fish). The maximum pulsation rate taken by A. aurita ephyrae was 49.2 beats min-1, which represents the maximum swimming velocity to be 8.87 cm·min-1. The pulsation rates were not affected by temperature over the range between 9°C and 15°C. However, they were influenced by starvation duration. Starvation-derived decrease in pulsation together with associated body shrinkage may lead to lower encounter rate of prey and lower escaping ability from predators, which may lead to higher predation loss in the field.