Reliability of Laboratory Metabolic Measurements of Meiofauna

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Abstract
The interstitial copepod Hastigerella leptoderma respires significantly less when sand grains are present than when sand grains are absent and the mud-dwelling species Nannopus palustris requires significantly different amounts of oxygen depending on the extraction method. Since the use of a substrate significantly reduced the metabolic rate of H. leptoderma, most meiofauna literature respiratory values are probably inflated estimates of the true metabolic rate. One must be careful how animals are extracted from the sediment because N. palustris extracted by differential gradient centrifugation respired significantly less than those hand sorted. Laboratory manipulation can significantly alter the estimated energy loss due to respiration.

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