Warren Currie 🦠🦐 on Nostr: Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠 Holopedium spp. is a strange cladoceran ...
Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
Holopedium spp. is a strange cladoceran #zooplankton in lakes. They create a large gelatinous polysaccharide mantle ~2x their body length, which helps with buoyancy and prevents them from being consumed, giving their moniker "jelly dudes". They resemble fish eggs. The preserved animal without the mantle looks very different, with a carapace distinctly spined and humped. In low nutrient, soft-water lakes, they can "bloom" and even clog a net.
https://phys.org/news/2014-11-calcium-loss-lakes-jelly.amp
Holopedium spp. is a strange cladoceran #zooplankton in lakes. They create a large gelatinous polysaccharide mantle ~2x their body length, which helps with buoyancy and prevents them from being consumed, giving their moniker "jelly dudes". They resemble fish eggs. The preserved animal without the mantle looks very different, with a carapace distinctly spined and humped. In low nutrient, soft-water lakes, they can "bloom" and even clog a net.
https://phys.org/news/2014-11-calcium-loss-lakes-jelly.amp