Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

McCoy, Michael W.

Abstract

By regulating the abundance of prey populations, predators can directly and indirectly influence food web interactions in ways that influence ecosystem function. Predator functional responses quantify how predator foraging rate changes with prey abundance. Due to the large numbers of individuals needed for these experiments, most studies are conducted on small, abundant taxa. Consequently, we know relatively little about the functional responses of many marine taxa, especially those that are large and highly mobile. We present a novel method for studying predator foraging behaviors by integrating two innovative approaches: passive acoustics to document the occurrence of underwater predation events in concert with a recently developed statistical method that uses the times between predation events to estimate functional response parameters. We demonstrate and expand on the application of these methods by quantifying the shape of the predator functional responses for whitespotted eagle rays (Aetobatus narinari) preying on hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria).

Extent

79 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (MS)--Florida Atlantic University, 2023.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00014252

Format

pdf

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