Green turtles shape the seascape through grazing patch formation around habitat features: Experimental evidence.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how megaherbivores incorporate habitat features into their foraging behavior is key toward understanding how herbivores shape the surrounding landscape. While the role of habitat structure has been studied within the context of predator-prey dynamics and grazing behavior in terrestrial systems, there is a limited understanding of how structure influences megaherbivore grazing in marine ecosystems. To investigate the response of megaherbivores (green turtles) to habitat features, we experimentally introduced structure at two spatial scales in a shallow seagrass meadow in The Bahamas. Turtle density increased 50-fold (to 311 turtles ha^-1 ) in response to the structures, and turtles were mainly grazing and resting (low vigilance behavior). This resulted in a grazing p

SUBMITTER: Smulders FOH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10078154 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature