Universität zu Köln

Groendahl, Sophie and Fink, Patrick ORCID: 0000-0002-5927-8977 (2016). The Effect of Diet Mixing on a Nonselective Herbivore. PLoS One, 11 (7). SAN FRANCISCO: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

The balanced-diet hypothesis states that a diverse prey community is beneficial to consumers due to resource complementarity among the prey species. Nonselective consumer species cannot differentiate between prey items and are therefore not able to actively regulate their diet intake. We thus wanted to test whether the balanced-diet hypothesis is applicable to nonselective consumers. We conducted a laboratory experiment in which a nonselective model grazer, the freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis, was fed benthic green algae as single species or as a multi-species mixture and quantified the snails' somatic growth rates and shell lengths over a seven-week period. Gastropods fed the mixed diet were found to exhibit a higher somatic growth rate than the average of the snails fed single prey species. However, growth on the multi-species mixture did not exceed the growth rate obtained on the best single prey species. Similar results were obtained regarding the animals' shell height increase over time. The mixed diet did not provide the highest growth rate, which confirms our hypothesis. We thus suggest that the balanced-diet hypothesis is less relevant for non-selective generalist consumers, which needs to be considered in estimates of secondary production.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Groendahl, Sophie UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Fink, Patrick UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-5927-8977 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-269974
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0158924
Journal or Publication Title:	PLoS One
Volume:	11
Number:	7
Date:	2016
Publisher:	PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
Place of Publication:	SAN FRANCISCO
ISSN:	1932-6203
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language COMPLEMENTARY RESOURCES; GENERALIST HERBIVORES; INSECT HERBIVORE; FOOD; GROWTH; FITNESS; SELECTION; QUALITY; CYANOBACTERIUM; INFOCHEMICALS Multiple languages Multidisciplinary Sciences Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/26997