Dataset: Phillips_2011 - Experiment 1 Larval Mortality
Deployment: Osenberg_et_al_Moorea

In this experiment, larvae were placed into feeding treatments with different types of phytoplankton to determine larval nutritional strategies.

Larvae hatched on Sept 24, 2009 and were distributed into tubs on 500mL filtered sea water (FSW). Three larval feeding treatments with different species of phytoplankton, all at 10 x 104 cells mL-1: Isochrysis galbana (‘‘Iso’’ treatment), Dunaliella tertiolecta (‘‘Dun’’ treatment), a 1:1 ratio of I. galbana and D. tertio- lecta (‘‘Mixed’’ treatment), plus an Unfed treatment in which larvae were raised in FSW. Investigators used a hemocytometer to count algal cells and calculate densities of phytoplankton stocks and amount of stock to add to containers for each treatment. Each of the four treatments had three replicate containers; 45 larvae were placed into each container initially except for the Unfed treatment which had 40 larvae per container. Every 3 days for 18 days starting on Sept 24, 2009, larvae were counted in each container to quantify survival. Water and food were also replenished. On days 3, 6, 9 and 18, six larvae per container were haphazardly sampled and preserved them in 70% ethanol for later measurement of protoconch height. On day 10, 15 larvae were transferred for the settlement challenge experiment. On day 18, the remaining larvae were transferred.