Rather than going to all that bothersome effort of having to catch their own dinner , investigator have found that some sea slug are much sneakier . They ’ll wait until the organism they know on , known as hydroids , catch their food before gobbling them up in what is thought to be an entirelynew form of predationcalled kleptopredation .
For researcher Trevor Willis it seemed odd that while the sea type slug known as nudibranchs live on hydroid – compound organisms not unlike coral – they also consume them . “ There would always be the peril that the solid food would run out before the sea slug could procreate , which did n’t strike me as a in particular intuitive strategy,”explainedWillis , who lead the inquiry issue inBiology Letters .
In exploring this relationship , however , Willis and his colleagues slip up across something thatwould surprise even him . They carried out nitrogen static isotope analysis of not only the nudibranchs and hydroids , but also zooplankton , which is what the hydroid raven on . To their confusion , they chance that the compactness of N in the sea slugs was in reality the same in the hydroids .
For most , this might not seem particularly odd , but for Willis and his squad , it was bizarre . As creatures rust other creature , the assiduity of sure food builds as you go up the food chain , in a process bang as bioaccumulation . This means that while the hydrozoan have more nitrogen in them than their zooplankton prey , the sea slugs should contain more atomic number 7 than the hydroid .
This paint a picture that the hydroids were not as major a element of the nudibranchs ' dieting as assumed and that they were in all probability consume the same quarry , even though the sea slugs just ca n’t enchant zooplankton . So the team set up an experiment where they tested the nudibranchs to see if they preferred hydrozoan that have just caught their own prey . They find oneself that the sea slugs were indeed twice as probable to champ on a newly fertilise hydroid than a thirsty hydroid .
“ People may have heard of kleptoparasitic behaviour – when one species take nutrient killed by another , like a pack of hyenas driving a lion from its kill for example . This is something else , where the piranha consume both its own prey and that which the quarry has captured,”saidWillis .
From this , the new feed strategy was key “ kleptopredation ” . It is unknown how vulgar or far-flung the conduct might be , but it highlights just how minuscule we sleep together about the marine environment , even as large swathe of it are being decimate by climate change faster than we can tape it .
