Nonconsumptive effects of black sea bass (Centropristis striata) on a crustacean mesopredator and the indirect effects on bivalve survival

• Published in: Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
• Main Authors: Heck, Stephen M., Paparo, Christopher J., Tinoco, Amanda I., Vlasak, Tracey J., Cahill, Brianna V., Milea, Stephen V., O'Toole, Kaitlyn A., Scannell, Brittney J., Grabowski, Jonathan H., Peterson, Bradley J.
• Other Authors: Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Environmental Science and Engineering Program, Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, 239 Montauk Highway, Southampton, New York 11968, U.S.A., Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Baltimore, MD 21218, U.S.A., Applied Biosciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, U.S.A., Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Road, Nahant, Massachusetts 01908, U.S.A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier BV 2024
• Subjects: Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10754/696636; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2023.151964

The consumptive and nonconsumptive effects of predators on their prey and the indirect effects of these interactions that cascade through food webs have been studied for over half a century. In the northwest Atlantic, the stock of black sea bass (Centropristis striata) steeply declined during the 1980s. While population crashes of fished bivalve species coincided with those of black sea bass, the role of black sea bass in driving trophic cascades that indirectly influence bivalve survival has largely been overlooked. Over the past decade, black sea bass have not only been recovering in abundance but warming water temperatures have been driving a northward expansion of the extent of their seasonal migration, resulting in a particularly strong relative recovery along the south shore of Long Island, New York. To explore whether black sea bass alter the foraging rates of mud crabs (Dyspanopeus sayi) on a species of bivalve, blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), we manipulated the presence and position of sea bass within an array of mesocosm tanks. We found that the presence of black sea bass reduced the proportion of blue mussels consumed by mud crabs. Black sea bass presence indirectly elevated blue mussel survival by as much as 47.7% by reducing mud crab per capita consumption of blue mussels by 57.9%. However, there were limitations to the nonconsumptive effects of black sea bass that appeared to depend on their proximity to mud crabs. While our results are from an experimental setup with a simplified food chain and are context dependent, they emphasize the importance of studying how nonconsumptive effects of specific marine predators influence trophic cascades from both conceptual and applied coastal resource management standpoints. Our results suggest that the recovery of black sea bass may bode well for the population restoration of several species of bivalves within estuaries throughout their range. Further, our study provides evidence that indicates that the nonconsumptive effects of a recovering marine predator ...