COMPENSATORY FEEDING RESPONSE OF THE SLUG SARASINULA-PLEBEIA TO DIETARY DILUTION

Like many polyphagous herbivores, individuals of Sarasinula plebeia (Fischer) (Soleolifera: Veronicellidae) consume a variety of plant species that may differ in nutritional content. In this study we determined the ability of these slugs to compensate for such variation in diet composition. Dilution with water of an agar-based diet containing commercial guinea pig food or carrot root to obtain dry weights (dw) of 90, 70, 40 and 10% of diet fresh weight (fw), caused immature slugs to consume increasingly more fresh weight of food [as much as 4.7-(guinea pig) to 6.1-fold (carrot) more]. Dry weight consumption and body mass-relative dry weight consumption rate also increased at intermediate dilutions, but with further dilution, dry weight intake declined despite the greater fresh weight consumption. At each dilution level, slugs fed the guinea pig diet consumed from ca. 5- to 6.4-fold more fresh weight than the carrot-fed slugs. The former grew substantially, with their final biomass and body mass-relative growth rate varying curvilinearly with diet % dw. If these slugs had not fed more but instead maintained the same fresh weight consumption as slugs in the 90% dw treatment, without altering food utilization efficiencies, then their biomass gain in the 70, 40 and 10% dw treatment, would have been only about 62, 43, and 21%, respectively, of the values actually attained. In contrast, carrot-fed slugs did not grow and were only able to maintain their initial biomass. For each diet, slug tissue water (% fw) was highest in the most diluted treatment but did not differ significantly among the other dilution levels. Approximate digestibility of the carrot diet was highest at intermediate dilution levels (ca. 75% of ingested food was digested and absorbed); for the guinea pig diet, this efficiency declined linearly from about 66% to 59% with increased dilution. For slugs that grew (i.e., those fed the guinea pig diet), efficiencies of converting digested (29-52%) and ingested (18-33%) food to dry biomass were both curvilinearly related to diet % dw. Thus, S. plebeia, like many other herbivores, has the capacity to increase food consumption substantially in response to reduced dietary nutrient level, allowing the slugs to cope with variable nutrient content in their food plants.