I am just scanning some zooplankton images from a recent expedition to Sognefjord, Norway. The images were taken with the LOKI system, a high-resolution, in-situ optical plankton sampling device (link below).
On several images I find copepods, which obviously carry ebibionts. Examples can be seen on the attached images. For each image environmental data are available...
So far i just had a first look at the data. But these (probably) epibionts appear a little too often to be artifacts.Could this be someone like Vorticella? Haven't seen such things on copepods that often.
My first impression is, that these images are more common closely behind the sill and at greater depth (below the freshwater influenced surface) -> in the stagnant higher saline waters behind the sill. But that is a very first guess...
So far, i found these 'epibionts' on copepods only; neither on ostracods, nor mysids... Samples were taken in October 2014 and during daytime only.
Is there someone who could give me a hint or some literature?
Best regards and thanks
Jan
Environmental information:
20141020 153412 772-> Depth: 294.2 m, Sal: 34.7, Temp: 7.45°C, OxySat: 67.0%
20141020 153700 517-> Depth: 202.4 m, Sal: 34.6, Temp: 7.51°C, OxySat: 69.3%
20141021 073935 824-> Depth: 183.2 m, Sal: 34.6, Temp: 7.62°C, OxySat: 72.8%
Article Imaging of plankton specimens with the lightframe on-sight k...
Dear Jan Schulz,
That is very interesting, we find also epibionts in Sea of Marmara under same conditions that you described (on greater depth - 1000m -; below the freshwater influenced surface -> in the stagnant higher saline waters - The Sea of Marmara has, in vertical section, three different water layers distinctly separated from each other. The top layer originates from low salinity Black Sea water with 18‰Sal and the deeper layers originating from the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas with salinity 38‰) and the epibionts locating only on the chaetognatha and copepoda , and usually on the copepoda that have clearly visible huge oil drops.
Our epibionts are Dunaliella tertiolecta Butcher, 1959. I have attached some photos.
Best wishes,
I see something similar (photo attached) in the Fraser River Estuary, B.C., Canada. I think they might be peritrich ciliates. Mine occur at lower salinities, but I also see them only on copepods and only in relatively stagnant waters.
If you don't already have it, there is a series of at least three papers in Crustaceana by Fernandez-Leborans called 'A review of the species of protozoan epibionts on crustaceans' that might be useful. Part I was in vol 73.
Dear
Epibiont attachments were common in all the water bodies but their infestation density was comparatively high in the shallow and stagnant water bodies. This is looking like peritrich ciliate attachments. Here i suggesting some of the literatures for identification of that epibionts, i hope this be helpful for u
http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/192/1/dissertation.pdf
Spatial and Temporal Patterns in the Occurrence of Peritrich Ciliates as Epibionts on Calanoid Copepods in the Chesapeake Bay, USA
Further
Levent Artüz attached pictures 2-7 looks like an attachment of the ectoparasite Ellobiposis sp., not like an epibionts.
Best wishes
a couple of recent papers, endo and ecto symbionts:
Guo Z, Liu S, Hu S, Li T, Huang Y, et al. (2012) Prevalent Ciliate Symbiosis on Copepods: High Genetic Diversity and Wide Distribution Detected Using Small Subunit Ribosomal RNA Gene. PLoS ONE 7(9): e44847. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044847
Acta Protozool. (2014) 53: 51–62 http://www.eko.uj.edu.pl/ap ACTA doi:10.4467/16890027AP.14.006.1443 PROTOZOOLOGICA Dirty Tricks in the Plankton: Diversity and Role of Marine Parasitic Protists
May not help with identification, but here are a couple more recent papers about the potential effects of such epibionts on the copepod hosts. Quite interesting...
http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/30/plankt.fbu084.full.pdf+html
http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/3/788.full.pdf+html
http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/4/413.full.pdf+html
Epibionts were found also on cave-dwellig copepods. They were found so far in only one cave near Ljubljana. There were two species - one succotria like and another one "vorticella" like. Some speciemens of copepods were heavily loaded with them - sometime more than 10 epibionts per specimen. They were attached on different body parts - no specific site preference. So far found on three genera:
Maraenobioutus n.sp. (under revision) - vorticella like epibiont
Morariopsis dumonti & Moraria poppei - suctoria like epibiont
No idea about ecological meaning of such co-occurence. However, it is probably long-lasting and specific, as cave is hydrologically quite isolated from the other part of the karst and Maraenobiotus and Morariopsis are known only from that cave.
Reference:
BRANCELJ, Anton, 2000: Morariopsis dumonti n. sp. (Crustacea: Copepoda: Harpacticoida) - a new species from an unsaturated karstic zone in Slovenia. Hydrobiologia, 436: 73-80.
Thes linksmay be a good starting point:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/4/549.full
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claudia_Dziallas
Thanks to all contributors!
I finally equipped myself with the suggested papers and further readings and will take them into account. Thanks for that.
I am completely aware, that epibionts are common on copepods. Know examples from northern Germany and Denmark where it can be sometimes hard to see host under its epibionts. Some the epibionts obviously migrate from a host to another.
Thus, the word 'artifact' was not properly chosen in my initial posting. What I wanted to say is that I have never seen such a high number of epibionts in LOKI images. So far such findings were very rare events. But here...
Thanks, Jan
PS: Don't want this understood as a closing of the question. Further opinions/answers/posts are welcome ;-)
Dear Jan, I cannot tell much about your pictures of epibionts (low resolution and too high contrast); however, it seems obvious to me the "epibionts" Levent showed are actually parasitic protists. They are well described for marine systems in the paper of Skovgaard and Saiz 2007 I attach.
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