A quantitative study of the decapod crustacean community commensal
with the coral Pocillopora meandrina var. nobilis Verrill was undertaken
and was accomplished through an analysis of communities collected in
coral heads in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. The coral head microhabitat was
described and analyzed. The community was described and its relationship
to the coral head habitat defined. It was found that community
composition was affected by coral head size and that relative composition
of the communities changed as the coral heads increased in size. Through
stomach contents analysis and trophic behavior experiments the commensals
were found to utilize the coral as a source of food, primarily by feeding
on material caught on the coral. A correlation between the total biomass
of the crustacean community and the surface area of the coral
heads in which they were collected was found, suggesting that the com-
munity is limited by the amount of surface area of a coralhead This
may reflect the amount of food available to the symbionts. There was
no good correlation between surface area of the corals and the biomass
of the individual components of the community, indicating that other
factors, such as the behavioral peculiarity of pairing and interspecific
competition probably determine the exact composition of the community
that a coral head can support.
It was concluded that the crustaceans studied were true commensals
with the coral, and that the commensal association involves the host
providing a source of food as well as protection for the symbionts. / Typescript. Bibliography: leaves 62-64.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UHAWAII/oai:scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu:10125/18139 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Barry, Charles Kevin |
| Publisher | University of Hawaii, Honolulu |
| Source Sets | University of Hawaii at Manoa Libraries |
| Language | en-US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | 70 pages |
| Rights | All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner. |
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