Abstract
Larvae of several species of invertebrates that live just below the surface of the seabed (infaunal species) are known to make active and consistent choices among sedimentary habitats; generally they choose the sediments most similar to those occurring in the habitats where the adult stages live in the field1–5. But, previous experiments designed to investigate habitat selection by such larvae were con-ducted almost entirely in still water and never under realistic flow conditions. Therefore, although larvae are able to actively select settlement sites, it is not known whether these choices are exercised in natural field flows5. We report here that the larvae of the infaunal polychaete, Capitella sp. I and the infaunal bivalve Mercenaria mercenaria, actively choose appropriate substrates in still water, but the species differ in their selection capabilities under controlled, realistic and defined flow conditions in the laboratory.
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Butman, C., Grassle, J. & Webb, C. Substrate choices made by marine larvae settling in still water and in a flume flow. Nature 333, 771–773 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/333771a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/333771a0
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