Natsumi Nishigawa
Position: Honours Student (Completed 2015)
Education: University of Queensland
Honours Project: "Do cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus indirectly affect demersal zooplankton?"
Whether cleaners indirectly affect demersal zooplankton remains unknown. Using a longterm cleaner fish manipulation, we tested whether cleaner presence affects demersal zooplankton. Zooplankton, captured using emergence traps (1 m2) placed on 11 experimental reefs, were sampled the reef during the day and night over nine sampling trips between July 2000 and December 2012. There was no effect of cleaner treatment, compared with pre-removal values in July 2000. The lack of indirect effects of cleaner fish presence on zooplankton include the possibility that demersal zooplankton make up only a small fraction of the diet that planktivorous fish consume and or that other organisms are dominant consumers of demersal zooplankton. The pronounced diel changes we did observe in zooplankton observed could play an important role in trophic interactions.
Education: University of Queensland
Honours Project: "Do cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus indirectly affect demersal zooplankton?"
Whether cleaners indirectly affect demersal zooplankton remains unknown. Using a longterm cleaner fish manipulation, we tested whether cleaner presence affects demersal zooplankton. Zooplankton, captured using emergence traps (1 m2) placed on 11 experimental reefs, were sampled the reef during the day and night over nine sampling trips between July 2000 and December 2012. There was no effect of cleaner treatment, compared with pre-removal values in July 2000. The lack of indirect effects of cleaner fish presence on zooplankton include the possibility that demersal zooplankton make up only a small fraction of the diet that planktivorous fish consume and or that other organisms are dominant consumers of demersal zooplankton. The pronounced diel changes we did observe in zooplankton observed could play an important role in trophic interactions.