Digestive selection underlies differential utilization of phytoplankton and sedimentary organics by infaunal bivalves: Experiments with cockles (Cerastoderma edule) using cross-labelled mixed diets

• Cross-labelling of mixed food items proved useful in assessing digestive selection.
• Selection promotes changes in gut processing parameters of different foods.
• Differential utilization of seston components is accounted for by digestive selection.
• Efficient utilization of poor foods is constrained by large gut passage times.

Differential utilization of phytoplankton and detrital particles present in natural sediments of mud-flats was studied in a series of experiments performed on the infaunal bivalve Cerastoderma edule. In order to assess digestive selection, parameters of food processing (organic ingestion rate: OIR, gross absorption efficiency: GAE and gut passage time: GPT) were recorded for each organic component in different combinations of food particles radio-labelled with 14C. Experimental design included the use of both labelled diets of a sole organic component and cross-labelled diets; i.e., mixed suspensions presenting alternatively labelled one of the various components tested: phytoplankton cells, sedimentary organic particles and particulate detritus from vascular salt-marsh plants. Preferential absorption of phytoplankton was accounted for by absorption efficiency values that were two-fold those for sedimentary detritus when recorded with mixed diets of both organic components. Two factors contributed to this difference: a) higher digestibility of microalgae, measured as the ratio of GAE to GPT, and b) faster gut passage of detrital particles that results from digestive selection likely involving the preferential incorporation of phytoplankton into the digestive gland. However, when diets based on a sole organic component (either phytoplankton or detritus) were compared, larger GPT were recorded for detrital particles that enabled improving GAE of this rather refractory food. Overall results of these experiments are consistent with most studies in trophic ecology based on stable isotopes enrichment, concerning both the diversity of trophic sources used by marine bivalves and its preferential utilization of phytoplankton over phyto-detritus.