Hello Pedro Pablo Alonso Sanchez Davila

Are you sure the algal sepcies is to blame for the loss of the copepods? Because Acartia members have been fed with Isochrysis galbana with reasonable success. The following link might serve your purpose:

< Article Applying algal paste as food for copepod live feed-A growth ...

Regards,

Dr. Abhishek Mukherjee

Dear Abhishek Mukherjee ,

Thanks for your time. I will take into consideration your information with others replicates. But very honestly, I want to know where is the place of origin of this microalgae, because I strongly feel that local fauna(zooplankton in this case) must be feed it with local microalgae. I do not think that Isochrysis be from the American continent or at least this microalgae is not from my country. so, what is its origin, That is my question. Thank you again for your info.

Pedro Pablo Alonso Sanchez Davila

I do very honestly think that the place of origin of a microalgae sounds very unscientific since the global ocean is interconnected, adding to that the ballast discharges almost certainly increase the complexity of the answer to your question. The species was first described as part of the marine microflora of United Kindom, but it in no way stated its confinement within the north Atlantic. WORMS states its potential origin to be Alien but focuses on European continental waters. That is also not a guarantee since the alga obviously evolved from its ancestors prior to the latest tectonic shifts and that is why your question is 'null and void' from a distributional perspective. You can ask for its endemism though. I believe you will find answers to that. On your own you can study the stable and unstable isotopic ratios of Carbon and Phosphorus (the species being lipid rich) and can corroborate you data with the paleoclimatic records available to actually shed light on your own original question of actually where it evolved. The 'when' part of your question can be solved by gene sequencing and a phylogenetic tree I guess.

Regards,

Dr. Abhishek Mukherjee