Authors: Nicole D Wagner Paul C Frost
Publish Date: 2012/02/12
Volume: 170, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-10
Abstract
The use of biochemical and molecular indices of nutritional stress have recently been promoted for their potential ability to assess the in situ nutritional state of zooplankton The development and application of these indicators should at least consider the crossreactivity with other nutritional stressors We examined the potential usefulness of body alkaline phosphatase activity APA as an indicator of dietary phosphorus P stress in Daphnia We measured growth rate body Pcontent and body APA of two species of Daphnia D magna D pulex grown for different periods under diverse dietary conditions We found Ppoor food reduced daphnid growth rates and body Pcontent while body APA increased in both species However body APA increased in Psufficient D magna and D pulex that were feeding on cyanobacterial compared to green algal food despite no differences in animal body P content Body APA increased in D magna fed Ppoor food whether cyanobacterial or algal Body APA also varied with age and other nutritional stresses low food quantity nitrogenpoor algae in both daphnid species Our results demonstrate that whole body homogenate APA in Daphnia is not singularly responsive to Ppoor food which will complicate or limit its future usefulness and application as an indicator of dietary Pstress in metazoansWe thank Dena Simmons and Scott Larkin for their assistance in maintaining Daphnia and algae cultures We also thank Clayton Williams for the use of the fluorescence microplate reader This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada NSERC through its Discovery grant program and by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation P Frost Experiments described in this manuscript comply with the current laws of Canada
Keywords: