Defensive metabolites from Antarctic invertebrates: does energetic content interfere with feeding repellence?

ABSTRACT: Many bioactive products from benthic invertebrates mediating ecological interactions have proved to reduce predation, but their mechanisms of action, and their molecular identities, are usually unknown. It was suggested, yet scarcely investigated, that nutritional quality interferes with defensive metabolites. This means that antifeedants would be less effective when combined with energetically rich prey, and that higher amounts of defensive compounds would be needed for predator avoidance. We evaluated the effects of five types of repellents obtained from Antarctic invertebrates, in combination with diets of different energetic values. The compounds came from soft corals, ascidians and hexactinellid sponges; they included wax esters, alkaloids, a meroterpenoid, a steroid, and the recently

SUBMITTER: Nunez-Pons L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4071601 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature