We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
As good as dead? Sublethal predation facilitates lethal predation on an intertidal clam.
- Authors
Meyer, John J.; Byers, James E.
- Abstract
Although ecologists have speculated that sublethal predation can impact prey dynamics, consequences of these predator effects have seldom been experimentally tested. In soft-sediment marine communities, fishes crop extended feeding siphons of buried clams, potentially causing clams to reduce their burial depth, thereby enhancing their susceptibility to excavating lethal predators. We simulated cropping of the confamilial clams,Protothaca stamineaandVenerupis philippinarum, by removing the top 40% of siphons, which caused each species to burrow 33–50% shallower than conspecifics with intact siphons. To examine subsequent consequences of reduced burial depth, we exposed cropped and intact clams to natural levels of predation in the field. Because of a naturally longer siphon,Protothaca, even after cropping, remained at relatively safe burial depths. In contrast, siphon cropping nearly doubled the mortality rate ofVenerupis. Thus, while sublethal predation facilitates lethal predation, this linkage depends on specific life history characteristics, even among ecologically similar species.
- Subjects
CLAMS; PACIFIC littleneck; MANILA clam; PREDATION; ANIMAL burrowing
- Publication
Ecology Letters, 2005, Vol 8, Issue 2, p160
- ISSN
1461-023X
- Publication type
Letter
- DOI
10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00700.x