Anti-predatory and foraging behaviors of whelks from laboratory experiments at Bodega Marine Laboratory in 2017

To investigate anti-predatory and foraging behaviors of whelks, we conducted laboratory experiments at Bodega Marine Laboratory in 2017 to test whether previous predator exposure had a sustained effect on prey foraging and in turn on a basal resource, even after the predator was removed. We tested for both behavioral and morphological legacies of prior predation. The study system consisted of a tri-trophic food chain, using the red rock crab, Cancer productus, as the predator, the carnivorous whelk, Nucella ostrina, as the prey species, and the California mussel, Mytilus californianus, as the basal resource.