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  On-line Guide to Chek Jawa
introduction
 
What's on the Menu?
Feeding on Chek Jawa

Animals on Chek Jawa eat things which might appear strange to us. And have equally stange, but ingenious, ways to get their food.

Delicious detritus: Detritus is a polite word for dung and decaying matter. Detritus is made up mostly of dead plants and tiny animals that have broken down into bits. Detritus is a rich source of nutrients much like fertiliser in a garden. Living animals contribute detritus when they deposit dung or drop off parts of their body such as feathers and skin.

    
Yummy Plankton: Plankton is another popular food item. Plankton is made up of microscopic plants and animals that drift with the water currents. This includes algae such as diatoms as well as the tiny larvae of larger animals.

Microscopic larvae drift with the currents to disperse to new places where they settle down and grow into large adults. Most however, never make it to adulthood as they are eaten by plankton feeders.

Plankton also comprises animals that remain microscopic all their lives, such as this copepod on the right.

There are two main ways to eat detritus and plankton: deposit feeding and suspension feeding.

Deposit feeders collect the particles that settle on the sea bottom. Buried worms gather detritus from the surface with their tentacles.

Sea cucumbers swallow and process sediments for detritus.

Suspension feeders collect the bits suspended in the water. Peacock anemones use their tentacles to collect detritus suspended in the water.

Filter feeders are suspension feeders that collect bits suspended in the water by actively creating a current of water through their bodies or by using body parts as a sieve.

Barnacles filter the water with their feathery feet, kicking the edible bits into their mouths.

Sponges and clams filter feed by sucking water into their bodies and then sieving out the edible particles.
 
Typical microscopic larvae of some
animals of Chek Jawa


flatworm




sea star




crab




sea cucumber





sea urchin





snail

‘Normal’ diets: Many animals on Chek Jawa have diets that are less strange to us.

Carnivores are flesh-eating animals. There are two main types of flesh-eaters: predators and scavengers.

Predators actively hunt, kill and eat animals. Predators don’t have to be large. An example of a small predator is the Drill, a snail that eats barnacles.

Scavengers don’t hunt or kill. They simply eat any animals that are already dead. Scavengers include crabs and prawns.

Herbivores eat plants. On Chek Jawa, the plants are not huge trees but are seagrasses, seaweeds and smaller algae. Animals large and small munch on these plants. These include slugs and fishes.

Omnivores eat both plants and animals. They usually eat a wide variety of food. The wild boar is an omnivore, and so are we!		    
Links
More about plankton
Marine Invertebrates in the Plankton on the University of Washington website: about plankton with photos of the various types of plankton including larval stages of various marine invertebrates.
Plankton on the Chesapeake Bay Program website: fact sheet on phytoplankton and zooplankton.
Photos of a wide variety of plankton on Image Quest 3-D Marine Library.

More about feeding strategies of marine creatures
Feeding on Life on Australian Seashores by Keith Davey on the Marine Education Society of Australia website: a fabulous goldmine of a site which covers various kinds of intertidal habitats and their inhabitants. Fact sheet with details and diagrams of the different ways of feeding, as well as explanation of food chains.
Energy: How Organisms Make a Living on the "Explore the Principles of Ecology" webpage of the Center for Global Environmental Education: a list with brief descriptions of the various feeding methods used by living things.
Characteristic Feeding Methods on the Marine Life Information Network for Britain and Ireland: a table with brief descriptions of the various feeding methods used by marine lifeforms.
Feeding in Aquatic Organisms on The Sextant, a Guide to Aquatic Biology at Marietta College: a more technical and detailed description of the various ways aquatic creatures feed.
  
 

a companion website to the chek jawa guidebook
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