Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Strong Impacts Of Grazing Amphipods On The Organization Of A Benthic Community, Je Duffy, Me Hay

VIMS Articles

Large brown seaweeds dominate coastal hard substrata throughout many of the world's oceans. In coastal North Carolina, USA, this dominance by brown seaweeds is facilitated by omnivorous fishes, which feed both on red and green algae and on herbivorous amphipods that graze brown algae. When fish are removed in the field, brown seaweeds are replaced by red seaweeds, and herbivorous amphipods are more abundant. Using an array of large (similar to 4000 L) outdoor mesocosms, we tested three mechanistic hypotheses for this pattern: fish feeding facilitates brown algal dominance (1) by removing red and green algal competitors, (2) by removing …