The significance of microbial carbon in the nutrition of the deposit feeding polychaete Nereis succinea

A partial carbon budget was calculated for a population of the deposit feeding polychaete Nereis succinea (Frey and Leuckart) for a North Carolina, USA salt marsh in order to determine if the ingestion and assimilation of microbial carbon was sufficient to meet the carbon requirement. Carbon required by the population was estimated by calculating annual production, 2.1 g C m^-2, and respiration, 9.4 g. There was no net release of dissolved organic carbon. Annual consumption of microbial carbon (as determined by ATP) was estimated to be 5.2 g m^-2. Assimilation efficiency of heterotrophic, detrital microbes was estimated to be 57%. If this value is used for all the microbial carbon, then total assimilation was 3.0 g C m^-2, or about one-fourth the carbon requirement. N. succinea was able to assimilate carbon from sterile plant detritus which suggests that some of the carbon needed to balance the budget may come from direct uptake of the plant substrate. Other possible additional sources of carbon include consumption of meiofauna and uptake of dissolved organic matter.