Squidpop consumption probability within Artificial Seagrass Units (ASU) in Back Sound, NC from October to November 2018

Abstract

To parse the ecological effects of habitat area and patchiness on faunal community structure and dynamics of estuarine nekton, we employed artificial seagrass unit (ASU) landscapes at a scale relevant to habitat fidelity of common fish and macroinvertebrates in our temperate study system, Back Sound, NC. These ASU landscapes were designed along orthogonal axes of artificial seagrass area (i.e., percent cover of each landscape = 10-60 percent) and fragmentation per se (i.e., percolation probability; 0.1-0.59) to delineate their independent and interactive effects on seagrass fish and macroinvertebrate communities.

To measure generalist consumption probabilities across landscapes, we conducted two squidpop consumption assays on 19-Oct and 1-Nov 2018. Consumption assays were conducted after landscapes were disturbed by Hurricane Florence, but prior to the seasonal egress of nekton from local seagrass meadows. On each assay date, up to 10 squidpops were deployed within ASUs in each landscape, 1 meter apart and less than 0.5 meters from the ASU-matrix interface (the edge of ASU patches), to control for potentially different consumption probabilities between seagrass patch edges and interiors. Squidpop presence/absence was checked after 1 hours, 2 hours, and 3 hours to retrospectively assess the timeframe in which overall consumption probabilities allowed for resolution of differences in consumption among sites (i.e., between one- and two-thirds of all bait consumed). All absent squidpops were presumed eaten based on previous efforts that have demonstrated negligible spurious bait loss.

Consumption assays were conducted by Drs. F. Joel Fodrie and Amy H. Yarnall for the Estuarine Ecology Laboratory of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences.

For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/891794