Tintinnoinea
Feeding

Because of their role as transferers of matter and energy between the microbial and the metazoan communities, tintinnids are an important link in marine planktonic food webs (Burkill, 1982; Laval-Peuto et al., 1986; Verity, 1985; Stoecker, 1984; Alder, 1995). While some authors have pointed out that tintinnids can consume particles only about 40-45% of the lorica's oral diameter (Spittler, 1973; Heinbokel, 1978a, b), others have observed that larger particles are taken under food stress conditions (Gold and Morales, 1975; Capriulo, 1982; Capriulo et al., 1986; Alder, 1995).

Tintinnids have been mentioned frequently as important grazers on detritus, picoplankton, bacterioplankton, and autotrophic and heterotrophic nannoplankton (Kopylov and Tumantseva, 1987; Hargraves, 1981). Furthermore, tintinnids can also consume microplanktonic diatoms and dinoflagellates (Verity and Villareal, 1986). Reports from coastal environments show daily consumption figures to 41% of the standing stock of chlorophyll a (Capriulo and Carpenter, 1980), and annual consumption up to 62% of the total 5-10 µm chlorophyll a production (Verity, 1986a). Some species show preference in prey (usually dinoflagellates, including some red tide-forming species; Stoecker et al., 1981, 1984; Stoecker and Guillard, 1982). On the other hand, they also constitute an important food item, mainly for copepods, euphausiids, several crustacean larvae (Mysidacea, Decapoda, Penaeidea, Caridea), fish larvae, chaetognaths, dinoflagellates, foraminifers, radiolarians, acantharians, ctenophores, benthic invertebrates, and even some other tintinnid species (see Pierce and Turner, 1992).