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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 7, 2026

A Fish-feeding Laboratory Bioassay to Assess the Antipredatory Activity of Secondary Metabolites from the Tissues of Marine Organisms

A Fish-feeding Laboratory Bioassay to Assess the Antipredatory Activity of Secondary Metabolites from the Tissues of Marine Organisms

Published on: January 11, 2015

Size-specific predation on marine invertebrate larvae.

Jonathan D Allen¹

¹Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA. jallen@bowdoin.edu

The Biological Bulletin

|February 9, 2008

Summary

Larval size significantly impacts marine invertebrate predation risk, with smaller larvae being more vulnerable to most predators. This highlights the need to consider larval size and age in mortality models.

Area of Science:

Marine Biology
Ecology
Developmental Biology

Background:

Planktonic larval stages of benthic marine invertebrates face high mortality from predation.
Larval size and developmental stage are hypothesized to influence predation rates, but experimental evidence is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

To experimentally investigate how larval size affects predation susceptibility in the sand dollar Dendraster excentricus.
To determine if different predator types exhibit size-dependent prey selection.

Main Methods:

Reduced egg size by separating blastomeres at the two-cell stage to create half-sized larvae.
Compared predation rates on half-sized and whole-sized larvae of varying ages using five predator types in laboratory trials.

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Main Results:

Four out of five predator types consumed significantly more half-sized larvae than whole-sized larvae.
Postlarval fish, however, consumed more whole-sized larvae.
Predators that preferred smaller larvae also preferentially consumed younger larvae, unlike postlarval fish.

Conclusions:

Larval size and age are critical factors influencing mortality rates during planktonic development.
Existing models assuming constant mortality rates may need revision to incorporate size- and age-dependent predation.
Predator-specific preferences underscore the complexity of marine invertebrate early life history dynamics.