By Brigit van Tussenbroek
Small invertebrates play a central role in seagrass communities as controllers of epiphyton and conduits for energy transfer from primary producers to higher trophic levels. Van Tussenbroek and collaborators at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, highlight a new interaction between meso-grazers and seagrasses by describing the foraging of invertebrates on the pollen/mucilage masses of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum during the night.
Male turtlegrass flower with invertebrate.
The fauna visiting the flowers was highly diverse 252 specimens belonging to 37 families and 57 species of crustaceans (Classes Maxillopoda, Ostracoda and Malacostraca) were found on 76 flowers, and 15 species were new records for the region. Annelids (mainly polychaetes) were less abundant (60 specimens) and diversified (13 species) and they exhibited no obvious differences in their visits to flowers with or without pollen. Negative consequences for reproductive success of the seagrass of the consumption of pollen by the invertebrates were most likely insignificant, because the quantities of removed pollen were very small. However, these invertebrates may serve as pollinators of T. testudinum, which if confirmed, makes this observation the first record of animal-pollination in the marine environment.
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Find the paper in MEPS