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Artificial Shelters And Survival Of Juvenile Caribbean Spiny Lobster Panulirus-Argus - Spatial, Habitat, And Lobster Size Effects, David B. Eggleston, Rom Lipcius, Dl Miller

VIMS Articles

A principal mechanism underlying a production hypothesis that artifical reefs increase environmental carrying capacity and eventually the biomass of reef-associated organisms is that these structures reduce predation on reef residents. We tested this predation mechanism with a series of field experiments at two sites (inner-bay sand-seagrass flat, and outer-bay seagrass bed adjacent to coral reefs) in Bahia de la Ascension, Mexico. We examined survival of two size-classes of juvenile Caribbean spiny lobster Panulirus argus tethered in seagrass beds with and without access to artificial lobster shelters, and at different distances from the shelters. The artificial shelters were concrete structures (casitas) …