[Coral-List] Detrital vs. algal food chain

Christopher Paul Jury jurychri at msu.edu
Tue Apr 25 12:52:15 EDT 2006


Is anyone aware of any explicit studies demonstrating what portion of the 
total energy available to a reef system or what portion of the total 
respiration is usually derived from the detrital food chain vs. the algal 
food chain? If not, might anyone have suggestions as to studies that attempt 
to quantify the energy available in a detrital food chain on a reef? I can 
certainly extrapolate from data on the abundance and composition of reef 
detritus, and perhaps rates of consumption by various organisms, but I'd 
like to avoid artifacts in the data as much as possible. If anyone could 
help steer me in the right direction it would be much appreciated. 

Best regards, 

Chris Jury




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