Effects of habitat on settlement, growth, predation risk and survival of a temperate reef fish

Abstract

AI{STKACT: We rr~easured adult denslty, settlement, post-settlement surv~val, recruitment succcss, predation risk and growth rate of the cunner Tautogolabrus aclspersi~s in 4 d~stinct habitat types (rocky reef, cobble, seagrass and sand) In St 5,largaret's Bay, Nova Scotla, Canada Settlement was not affected by h a b ~t a t type or by adult d e n s ~t y Post-settlement surv~vdl, recruitment success ( d e f ~n e d as the d e n s ~t y of juven~les present after an arbitrary p e r ~o d following settlement) and adult density varied w ~t h habltat and were posit~vely correlated tvilh habitat conlplexity Thls pattern was dlametr~cally opposed to the pattern of predat~on I-lsk, whlch was negat~vely correlated cvlth habltat complexity Growth of juvenlle cunner dlffered between habrtdts but \vas tinrelated to habltat complexity Stnce the l n ~t ~a l pattern of settlement was dt-amatlcally altered w ~t h l n a very short time, cve concluded that habltdt-medlated post-settlement processes play an Important role in the population dynarn~cs of cunner The results of thls study demonstrate thr lrnportdnce of habltat In d e t e r n ~~n ~n g growth rates, rates of post-settlement mortality and recrult~nent success