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A field test of the effects of mesopredators and landscape setting on juvenile oyster, Crassostrea virginica, consumption on intertidal reefs

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Abstract

Oyster populations are often structured by both biotic interactions and abiotic stresses. Juvenile oysters, i.e., those most vulnerable to predation, face a wide range of predatory characteristics (size, mobility) such that predator identity might exert a strong influence on oyster populations. Likewise, oyster reef location, either as isolated patch reefs or saltmarsh-fringing reefs, can strongly influence the ecological processes impacting oyster populations. Therefore, this study sought to quantify the contribution of predator identity, in particular mesopredators, to oyster survival in the field, while also examining the role of landscape setting in predation. Using a multiple mesh size cage design, oyster survival was measured by excluding access to different groups of predators at both patch and fringing reef and reference sites in Hewlett’s Creek, Wilmington, North Carolina, in August/September 2013, while also monitoring settlement and recruitment at both reef locations from May to August 2013. The results indicated a significant cage by location interaction, indicating that the predator identity or modality was not the same across all sites. Despite this, at either reef location, oyster survival did not differ between 37-mm mesh cages, which allowed access only by mesopredators, and no-cage treatments, which allowed access to all predators, while survival was reduced by >20 % on fringing reefs relative to patch reefs. This study demonstrates the significant contribution of mesopredators, likely xanthid crabs, to oyster predation in the field at ambient predator densities and suggests that the differences in oyster abundance between patch and fringing reef locations are likely due to differential predation.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Ami Wilbur, Director of the UNCW Shellfish Hatchery, for supplying the oysters used in this study. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Will White, Troy Alphin, and Marc Hanke at UNCW, Dr. Joel Fodrie of UNC-CH, and Rebecca Kulp of Stony Brook University for useful comments on this research. We would like to thank David Meyer of NOAA for the use of crab cages. Finally, symbols used for the conceptual diagrams were courtesy of the Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies (ian.umces.edu/symbols/).

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  1. Department of Biology and Marine Biology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, USA

    John M. Carroll, John P. Marion & Christopher M. Finelli

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  1. John M. Carroll
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Correspondence to John M. Carroll.

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Communicated by J. Grassle.

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Carroll, J.M., Marion, J.P. & Finelli, C.M. A field test of the effects of mesopredators and landscape setting on juvenile oyster, Crassostrea virginica, consumption on intertidal reefs. Mar Biol 162, 993–1003 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-015-2643-7

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