Comparing oxygen uptake rates of driftwood and wrack generalist talitrid amphipods

ABSTRACT

Rates of oxygen consumption in seawater standardized for size (mass or body length) were compared for a representative supralittoral, wrack generalist talitrid – Platorchestia platensis and a representative driftwood, specialist talitrid – Macarorchestia remyi. Oxygen consumption in seawater was significantly less in M. remyi. This confirms the view that a reduced standard metabolic rate, and consequent reduction in growth rate and final size achieved, was an important physiological mechanism involved in dwarfism and adaptation to driftwood in M. remyi. Reduced standard metabolic rate in driftwood specialist talitrids is contrary to the metabolic theory of ecology.

KEYWORDS:

• Metabolic rates
• Macarorchestia remyi
• Platorchestia platensis
• driftwood talitrid dwarfism
• metabolic theory of ecology

Acknowledgments

We thank John Martell and two unnamed reviewers for improving earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.