Chemosensory responses and foraging behavior of Pycnopodia helianthoides: predator or scavenger?

Abstract

Chemical cues released by damaged or dead organisms can affect how and where benthic scavengers feed, whether damage or mortality is natural or fishery-related. These cues may also cause predators to act as facultative scavengers. Experiments were performed to determine the role that the seastar Pycnopodia helianthoides plays in the presence of scavengable prey. The results of these experiments suggest that P. helianthoides preferentially scavenge in lieu of its normal predatory role. When given a choice, P. helianthoides choose damaged or decaying food over live prey even when live prey is encountered en route to the damaged animal. The densities and activities of P. helianthoides were compared between areas where food was continually introduced and areas where food was not introduced. Adding scavengable food to areas with P. helianthoides caused a spatial redistribution of the seastar population, a change in the foraging dynamics of the seastars, and in some cases, a change in the densities of the prey that P. helianthoides normally consume. The effects of introducing food appeared to result in a change in the role that P. helianthoides plays in the benthic community. This change in modes could have significant effects on the equilibrium of the benthic community.