NOVEL OBSERVATIONS UNDERLYING THE FAST GROWTH OF SUSPENSION-FEEDING SHELLFISH IN TURBID ENVIRONMENTS - MYTILUS-EDULIS

For the first time for any benthic filter-feeder, this study documents each component process of nutrient acquisition through natural tidal variations of food availability. The organic content of seston availab le during both neap and spring tides in the bay of Marennes-Oleron, Fr ance, decreased from 28 to 8 % with increasing seston concentration fr om 10 to about. 90 mg total particulate mass l(-1). Throughout this ti dal variation, the blue mussel Mytilus edulis L. cleared more water of particles as seston availability increased. Rejection of filtered mat erial as pseudofaeces prior to ingestion remained a constant fraction of about 0.93 x the mass of filtered material, so that ingestion rate showed no signs of stabilising al even the highest food availabilities . We confirm that M. edulis may preferentially reject inorganic matter with pseudofaeces. More significant was the novel observation that: t he net selection efficiency with which filtered organics were selectiv ely retained for ingestion increased rapidly with the rate at which se ston was filtered, this increase being faster for seston of higher org anic content. The result was that the organic content of ingested matt er was enriched by up to 5 times the organic content of filtered parti cles. Further, net absorption efficiency for ingested organics varied in strong positive relation with the organic content of ingested mater ial. Therefore, rates of organic absorption increased with seston filt ration rate, and net energy balance increased despite the decreasing o rganic content of particles available at higher concentrations. These collective findings demonstrate continuous interrelated changes in fee ding physiology that help to maintain rates of nutrient acquisition in dependent of short-term fluctuations in seston composition.