Fish Feeding and the Structure of Benthic Communities in Temperate Waters

Abstract

Shallow water marine environments harbor a variety of predators. These include not only whelks, starfishes, and crustaceans but also numerous species of teleost and elasmobranch fishes. Studies of the invertebrate predators, focusing on their ability to modify the distribution and abundance of their benthic prey, have provided a basis for many of the generalizations current in the ecological literature (87, 107, 112). Invertebrate predators are apparently able to do this despite reduced mobility and the action of environmental disturbances and uncertainties. Relevant ecological theory predicts that the influence of such predators will become more pronounced as they enter subtidal situations where they can forage without the periodic disturbance of emersion and direct wave shock (32). Under these circumstances the role of benthic-feeding fishes in shallow marine ecosystems becomes one of acute interest. They possess, in comparison with the invertebrates, superior mobility and orientation behavior and a range of sophisticated sensory cues that permit them to detect even well-hidden prey (142). These characteristics, which include the ability to forage over the full intertidal range, suggest that predatory and herbivorous fishes should be major determinants of subtidal community structure. Here I review evidence that fish feeding modifies the structure and organization of biotic assemblages in shallow temperate oceans. Most generalizations concerning marine community structure derive from temperate