may30,905(s7-3368)invited.docVIP

May 30, 9:05 (S7-3368) Invited Phenotypic variability in life history traits: is intra-population variability important for zooplankton dynamics? Claudia Halsband-Lenk1, Ketil Eiane1 and Thomas Ki?rboe2 The University Centre in Svalbard, P.O. Box 156, N-9171 Longyearbyen, Norway. E-mail: claudia.halsband-lenk@unis.no Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Kavalerg?rden 6, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark We address the question to what degree quantitative life history traits, such as body size and development time, vary within and between zooplankton populations, and if this variability matters for our understanding of their population dynamics on ecological time scales. Four approaches are applied: (1) a comparison of field and lab-reared copepod populations with respect to the degree of variability in body length and width, where it is assumed that the field population consists of individuals with potentially different environmental histories and thus should display higher variability than a lab-reared population that was kept under constant conditions over several generations. (2) To estimate heritability of these traits, artificial selection on body size in both directions was exerted on a lab population of Acartia tonsa over a number of generations. (3) About 50 individuals were reared individually from egg to adulthood and their development rates compared with their siblings, both within and between offspring from several females. (4) Finally, the body sizes, egg production and development rates obtained from the experiments are implemented into an individual-based model (IBM) to test for a possible effect on population dynamics on the scale of one to multiple generations. The implications for current methods in zooplankton field sampling, such as spatial and temporal frequency, replicates, etc. are discussed. May 30, 9:35 (S7-3639) Linkage between Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and primary production Langdon B. Quetin1, Robin M. Ross1 and Ma