I suppose that most probably the object is bare of barnacles and when by chance it crosses a patch of competent barnacle larvae, they settle on it, all of them of the same cohort. Later the settled individuals grow, increase in weight, and when their weight exceeds the buoyancy force of the floating object, the whole think sinks to the bottom, and eventually the barnacles are predated or die. Do this make sense? Does anyone have any idea if this is true?
Best regards,
Isabel
this would only hold if the total available area for colonization was colonized at this one event - if available spaces remained then individuals from a different cohort could colonize at a later date
Thank you! You are right. I do not know how abundant L. anatifera larvae patches are, but it might happen and object being colonized by a different cohort of the same species or even by a different fouling species, if space is still available and species are compatible. My question is related to chemical cues. I have analysed the proteome of the cement and cement gland of both L. anatifera and P. pollicipes, and I have observed that L. anatifera proteome has much less chemical cue proteins as compared to P. pollicipes. ThatI made me think that probably L. anatifera do not invest that much in chemical cues because it may be worthless. Cues would dilute at the ocean before a larval patch comes close. Their strategy would account more on objects that drift across patches by chance, but in that case, they do no settle nearby conspecifics as P. pollicipes do. The cohort would settle alone in a new colonized object, most of the times... Do you think it makes sense?