Artemia
predators in Great Salt Lake
From:
Raśl Coyula <coyula@fbio.uh.cu>
To: Artemia Characterization <artemia-l@email.sparklist.com>
Sent: January 10, 2002
QUESTION:
Are
there any predators for Artemia in Great Salt Lake?
Raśl
Coyula
e-mail: coyula@fbio.uh.cu
***************
COMMENTS
1:
Corixids
(Corixidae) and birds. Their impact on the Artemia population has been
insignificant. Perhaps conditions could occur (eg., very low salinity)
that might make predation a limiting factor in the growth and survival of
GSL Artemia. However this has never been documented. Population
size is most likely limited by food availability and quality.
Brad Marden
e-mail: bmarden@inve-us.com
***************
COMMENTS
2:
Brad
is correct in that birds and corixids successfully predate lots of Artemia
but the largest trophic interference is by man. Close to 20 million pounds
of raw Artemia cysts removed this harvest season (still ongoing).
Although
there is a substantial amount of Artemia biomass caught along with the cysts
the bottom line is that ALL Artemia biomass are doomed to die with the
onslaught of winter.
Howard
W. Newman
Desert Lake Technologies, LLC
e-mail: Bshrimp@aol.com
http://www.desertlake.com