Feeding preferences of the sea urchin Diadema setosum (Leske, 1778) in Taklong Island National Marine Reserve, Guimaras, Philippines
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- Diadema setosum, feeding preferences, feeding ecology, sea urchin, Taklong Island, macroalgae, seagrass
- Copyright
- © 2019 Luza et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Feeding preferences of the sea urchin Diadema setosum (Leske, 1778) in Taklong Island National Marine Reserve, Guimaras, Philippines. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27733v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27733v1
Abstract
Sea urchins are keystone herbivores that greatly influence primary productivity, algal abundance and scleractinian coral recruitment. The long-spined black sea urchin Diadema setosum is widespread and abundant in reef flats throughout the Philippines. Prior studies regarding the feeding preference of D. setosum have been conducted overseas, but little is known about the impact of the echinoid herbivory on reef flat communities in the Philippines. Feeding preferences of D. setosum on four common marine plant species, Halimeda macroloba, Ceratodictyon spongiosum, Padina sp., and Enhalus acoroides were investigated at the University of the Philippines Visayas Marine Biological Laboratory, located in Taklong Island National Marine Reserve (TINMR), Guimaras. Two food choice experiments were conducted; choice feeding and no-choice feeding. The outcome of choice feeding experiments, expressed as consumption (in g) and percent consumption (%), were used to determine its feeding preferences. The two most preferred feeds determined were then used in no-choice feeding experiment to measure its consumption rate (g⸱echinoid-1⸱hr-1). Results of the choice feeding experiment show that D. setosum significantly prefers C. spongiosum (4.83 ± 2.56 g consumption or 32.2%) and H. macroloba (3.73 ± 2.27 g or 24.8%), and avoids E. acoroides (only 0.17 ± 0.22 g or 1.13%) (F= 5.423, p < 0.05). The no-choice feeding experiment between preferred feeds show H. macroloba was consumed more (0.22 ± 0.16 g⸱echinoid-1⸱hr-1) than C. spongiosum (0.15 ± 0.05 g⸱echinoid-1⸱hr-1) although there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in consumption rate. Results of the no-choice feeding experiment may have been affected by poor water quality and are considered inconclusive. Nevertheless, the study supports the ecological role of D. setosum as an important herbivore that regulates certain macroalgal species in TINMR through its grazing activities.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints