It remains a controversial issue how feeding-current feeding copepods perceive individual algal prey.
In several recent studiers we have demonstrated the copepods perceive their algal prey when they touch – or near touch – the cells as they arrive in the feeding current. This challenges the traditional view that copepods can perceive individual algal cells remotely using chemical cues. The exact mechanism has implications for fundamental properties of predator–prey interactions, first of all for prey size spectra, which is a standard ingredient in many models of plankton ecosystems. The science community has reacted to our challenge, and in this article you can see our response.
Read the paper here.
Reference:
Kiørboe T, Gonçalves RJ, Couespel D, van Someren Gréve H, Saiz E, and Tiselius P (2016) Prey perception in feeding-current feeding copepods. Limnology and Oceanography, in press; available online. DOI: 10.1002/lno.10293