• Login
    View Item 
    •   TAMU-CC Repository Home
    • Research Centers
    • Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
    • Conservation & Biodiversity
    • publications
    • View Item
    •   TAMU-CC Repository Home
    • Research Centers
    • Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
    • Conservation & Biodiversity
    • publications
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Mechanisms That Generate Resource Pulses in a Fluctuating Wetland

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Mechanisms That Generate Resource Pulses in a Fluctuating Wetland.pdf (1.866Mb)
    Date Issued
    2016-07-22
    Author
    Botson, Bryan A.
    Gawlik, Dale E.
    Trexler, Joel C.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158864
    URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1969.6/89422
    Abstract
    Animals living in patchy environments may depend on resource pulses to meet the high energetic demands of breeding. We developed two primary a priori hypotheses to examine relationships between three categories of wading bird prey biomass and covariates hypothesized to affect the concentration of aquatic fauna, a pulsed resource for breeding wading bird populations during the dry season. The fish concentration hypothesis proposed that local-scale processes concentrate wet-season fish biomass into patches in the dry season, whereas the fish production hypothesis states that the amount of dry-season fish biomass reflects fish biomass production during the preceding wet season. We sampled prey in drying pools at 405 sites throughout the Florida Everglades between December and May from 2006–2010 to test these hypotheses. The models that explained variation in dry-season fish biomass included water-level recession rate, wet-season biomass, microtopography, submerged vegetation, and the interaction between wet-season biomass and recession rate. Crayfish (Procambarus spp.) biomass was positively associated with wet-season crayfish biomass, moderate water depth, dense submerged aquatic vegetation, thin flocculent layer and a short interval of time since the last dry-down. Grass shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus) biomass increased with increasing rates of water level recession, supporting our impression that shrimp, like fish, form seasonal concentrations. Strong support for wet-season fish and crayfish biomass in the top models confirmed the importance of wet-season standing stock to concentrations of fish and crayfish the following dry season. Additionally, the importance of recession rate and microtopography showed that local scale abiotic factors transformed fish production into the high quality foraging patches on which apex predators depended.
    Citation
    Botson BA, Gawlik DE, Trexler JC (2016) Mechanisms That Generate Resource Pulses in a Fluctuating Wetland. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158864. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158864
    Collections
    • publications

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    TDL
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV
     

     

    Browse

    All of TAMU-CC RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartmentsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartments

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    TDL
    Theme by 
    Atmire NV