©2020 Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office.Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation
©2020 Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office.Time series of outplanted mussel patches left exposed or unexposed to predation by the sea star Pisaster ochraceus.
PREDATION RATE - OREGON
PISCO Intertidal
Location: Oregon and California rocky intertidal
Oregon State University
Project Duration May 2017 - 2020
Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to study the rate of predation on mussels in the low intertidal.
Number of sites: 7 (Fogarty Creek, Boiler Bay, Yachats Beach, Strawberry Hill, Cape Blanco**, Port Orford Heads, Rocky Point) **at CB full cage reps double as annual Mussel Growth
Annual experiment schedule: April: Project is restarted, new mussels are deployed
May: Vexar plots are domed
June: Vexar removed and cages are installed
June-March: Monitoring plots
Number of replications per site: 5
Number of treatments per replicate: 2 (Fence Control, Cage)
Installation Supplies:
Monitoring Supplies
Setup in Field:
Collect 500 mussels from the midzone at each site on the day of deployment. Mussels should be about 5-6cm long.
Clear any mussels and organisms remaining from the past year in the plots. The mussels transplanted to the cleared plots and secured to the rocks using Vexar mesh. Dome the vexar mesh over the mussels, giving the mussels 1-2 inches of space between them and the mesh. Doming can be done after 2 weeks to a month after initial deployment to promote byssal thread attachment.
Remove the vexar from the plots a month after it has been domed. Once the Vexar is removed from each plot, install the stainless steel cages and fences around the mussels. Add colored zipties to the Cages and Control Fences to distinguish between each replicate number (Red =1, Orange =2, Yellow =3, Green =4, Blue =5).
Monitoring:
Pred Rate is monitored at each visit, or as often as possible. Count mussels within each treatment and record the number of alive and dead individuals. Use oil pastels to mark the individuals counted within each fence and cage to keep track of which have been counted and which have not.
In June, July, and August the number of sea stars within a 1 meter radius around each plot is counted and recorded in the notes section of the datasheet. Some sea stars will be double counted if treatments are close together, this is normal and will not affect analysis.
Pisaster and Nucella spp. should be removed from the cage plots, but not recorded. The monitoring of Pred Rate at a site will be terminated when the mussels from all fence plots are gone.
Instruments:
Rock Hammer Drill: Amazon – Bosch – 11536VSR
Lags and anchors: McMaster Carr
https://www.mcmaster.com/#stainless-steel-lag-screws/=1br8j6w – item number 92351A558
Polyethylene Conical Screw Anchor, No. 14-16 item number: 97068A140
Mesh, Plastic “Vexar”: Memphis Net and Twine http://www.memphisnet.net/ (888)674-7638
Black: 1/4 or ½ in. Mesh, Wind and Sand Fence, Standard Product ID: PN3
Menge, B. A., Gouhier, T. C., Raimondi, P. T., Gravem, S. (2022) Predation Rate By Sea Stars on Mussels. Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). (Version 1) Version Date 2022-05-09 [if applicable, indicate subset used]. http://lod.bco-dmo.org/id/dataset/873984 [access date]
Terms of Use
This dataset is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
If you wish to use this dataset, it is highly recommended that you contact the original principal investigators (PI). Should the relevant PI be unavailable, please contact BCO-DMO (info@bco-dmo.org) for additional guidance. For general guidance please see the BCO-DMO Terms of Use document.