Filtration of Red Tide Dinoflagellates by an Intertidal Bivalve, Glauconome chinensis Gray: An Implication for the Potentials of Bivalves in Tidal Flats

To understand the physiology of a suspension-feeding bivalve and its potential impacts on the dynamics of red tides on tidal flats, rates of clearance and ingestion of Glauconome chinensis were measured as a function of algal concentration, when the bivalve was fed on a nontoxic strain of red tide dinoflagellate Prorocentrum minimum, Cochlodinium polykrikoides or Scrippsiella trochoidea. With increasing algal concentration, weight-specific clearance rate increased rapidly at lower concentrations and after reaching the maximum at ca. 0.2 to 1.0 mgC/L, it decreased at higher concentrations. Maximum clearance rate was nearly equal for different algal species and ranged between 2.1 and 2.6 L/g/hr. Weight-specific ingestion rate also increased at lower algal concentrations but saturated at higher concentrations. Maximum ingestion rate was 2 to 10 fold different with different algal species: S. trochoidea (10.1 mgC/g/hr), P. minimum (3.9 mgC/g/hr), and C. polykrikoides (0.99 mgC/g/hr). Nitrogen and protein content showed that S. trochoidea is the best among the tested three red tide dinoflagellates. The maximum filtration capacity, calculated by combining the data on ingestion rate from laboratory experiments and those from the field for the density of the bivalve and the red tide dinoflagellates was 4.7, 1.4, and 25.3 tons/m2/day for P. minimum, C. polykrikoides, and S. trochoidea, respectively. It is hypothesized that the abundant suspension-feeding bivalves in tidal flats can effectively mitigate the outbreak of red tides.