The symbiotic jellyfish, Cassiopea andromeda (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa) often sit upside-down on the benthic of shallow water regions, with constant pulsation behavior of its umbrella which brought water currents flowing through its oral arms to enhance prey capture and material exchange with surrounding water. However, little is known about the influence of pulsation on its heterotrophic behavior and symbiotic relationship with endosymbiotic zooxathellae. Current study focused on the potential effects of animal size, illumination, diel cycle, prey availability and starvation on the pulsation rates of the jellyfish. Our result revealed that the pulsation rates decreased at larger animal size, absence of prey, prolonged starvation and dark environment, and vice versa. Animals receiving natural light illumination showed significant diel cycle pattern of pulsation in the 24 hr period, which is not observed in the group dark treatment. Meanwhile, we also conducted the clearance rates of the upside-down jellyfish through its ontogenetic growth, and found that the clearance rates significantly increased as they grow. Based on the results obtained from this study, its is likely that the smaller meduae might rely more on the energy provided by the symbiotic algae, and can exhibit more significant habit selecting behavior.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0831110-155527 |
| Date | 31 August 2010 |
| Creators | Yang, Szu-Chien |
| Contributors | Li-Lian Liu, Kwee-Siong Tew, Chang-Tai Shih, Wen-Tseng Lo |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0831110-155527 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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