Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

PC03 Undergraduate Education

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001

Location: Southwest Hall

Cruz, M, , UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE MAR DEL PLATA, MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, mcruz@mdp.edu.ar

Escalante, A, H, UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE MAR DEL PLATA, MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, aescalan@mdp.edu.ar

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON COPEPOD SPECIES GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT TIME: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Notodiaptomus incompositus is a South American freshwater species widely distributed in the plankton of shallow, polymictic lakes from the so-called depressed Pampa (Argentina). Development time, stage specific survival and body size of N. incompositus naupliar, copepodite and adult stages under two temperatures and different food conditions were determined in the laboratory. For this purpose, N. incompositus was collected from three sites of Lake Los Padres, sheltering different phytoplankton composition. Development time from the first naupliar stage to adult was 27.1, 29.4 and 28.0 days at 22ºC and 120.6, 134.9 and 116.1 days at 9ºC, at St. 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The males developed to adult earlier than the females. Stage duration of N1 was the shortest and that of C5 the longest of all the developmental stages in all experiments. Body size of females was larger than that of males, and both larger than body size of natural populations, except for females from St.2 at 9ºC. Furthermore, body size differences were greater between experimental and natural males. Survival rate was higher in advanced naupliar and copepodite stages, and decreased when they molted to N2 and C1.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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