SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 387 



[Percy Sladen Trust Research. ~\ 



THE NUTRITION AND METABOLISM OF MARINE 

 ANIMALS : THE RATE OF OXIDATION AND 

 OUTPUT OF CARBON-DIOXIDE IN MARINE 

 ANIMALS IN RELATION TO THE AVAIL- 

 ABLE SUPPLY OF FOOD IN SEA- WATER, 



By Professor Benjamin Moore, F.R.S., Edward S. 

 Edie, B.Sc, and Edward Whitley, M.A. 



(From the Marine Biological Station, Port Erin, 



and the Bio-Chemical Department, University of 



Liverpool.) 



One of the most important questions in the study of 

 the economic balance of nutrition of the various types of 

 marine animals is that of the source of the food of the 

 higher types, such as molluscs, crustaceans, and fishes. 



This question has been discussed, and experimental 

 results bearing on its solution have been described, in a 

 previous paper* by the same authors. 



The amount of the dissolved organic matter in sea- 

 water and that of the suspended organic matter in the 

 form of plankton were both investigated, and it was 

 concluded that neither dissolved organic matter nor the 

 average amount of suspended plankton sufficed to account 

 for the nutrition of the larger marine organisms. It was 

 pointed out that the larger animals either so distributed 

 themselves along the pathways and situations of a richer 

 supply of food, or actively followed up an unequal distri- 

 bution of food so as to enable themselves to live upon 

 richer zones of minute organisms, or captured oilier 

 animals of greater size than minute plankton, which 



* Bio-Chemical Journal, Vol. VI, 1912, p. 255. 



