Embryonic brooding in Crepipatella fecunda: Implications for processes related to maternal feeding

• Food particles entered the pallial cavity faster in brooding females.
• Water flow and clearance rates were higher for brooding females.
• Brooding females showed higher rates of oxygen consumption.

Females of the calyptraeid gastropod Crepipatella fecunda enclose their fertilized eggs in thin-walled egg capsules. They then brood these capsules for at least several weeks in the mantle cavity, near the gills. Such brooding has the potential to obstruct water flow through the mantle cavity, potentially interfering with particle capture and oxygen uptake. Surprisingly, this study shows that brooding females increase the speed at which particles enter the mantle cavity and in fact increase overall rates of particle capture, although there was no impact on the rate at which particles moved along the gill surface. Brooding females were less able than non-brooding females to retain large-sized food particles (16–20 μm), but most of the incoming food particles (2–16 μm) were retained equally well by females in both groups. The combination of brooding females and their embryos consumed oxygen faster than non-brooding females.