Grazing effects by Nereis diversicolor on development and growth of green algal mats

Nereis diversicolor is generally considered to be a predator and deposit feeder, but have also been found to graze on benthic algae in shallow coastal areas. In this study we investigated the grazing effects on the development and growth of green algae, Ulva spp. Algal growth was studied in an experiment including two levels of sediment thickness; 100 mm sediment including macrofauna and 5 mm sediment without macrofauna, and three treatments of varying algal biomass; sediment with propagules, sediment with low algal biomass (120 g dry weight (dwt) m− 2) and sediment with high algal biomass (240 g dwt m− 2). In the 100 mm sediment, with a natural population of macrofauna, N. diversicolor was the dominating (60% of total biomass) species. After three weeks of experimentation the result showed that N. diversicolor was able to prevent initial algal growth, affect growth capacity and also partly reduce full-grown algal mats. The weight of N. diversicolor was significantly higher for polychaetes in treatments with algae added compared to non-algal treatments. There were also indications that a rich nutrient supply per algae biomass counteracted the grazing capacity of N. diversicolor.