Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Funding

Vermetid counts and their status on reefs around French Polynesia.

Related Datasets:

• Brown_et_al_2016_SimpleCounts: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/721511
• Brown_et_al_2016_SizeComparison: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/721581
• Brown_et_al_2016_QuadratSurvey: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/721232 (The current page.)

In Tahiti and Moorea, Anya, Amy and Morgan visited different sites around the island and counted the vermetids, recorded the aperature size (length of the shell opening) as well as their statuses. Statuses were determined by Alive Net (AN), if snails were alive and making a net, Alive (A), if snails were alive and are not retracted but are not making a net, Alive Retracted (AR), if snails are alive, but they are retracted at least 5mm into the shell, or Recently Dead (RD) if snails had recently died and have either a bright white shell or a shell with a light layer of turf growing.

Hal Lecinsky and Nicole Boriski and Leslie Bissey (from the Paul Gaughin) took photographs of vermetids and sent them to Anya, and she determined the status of the snails (AN, A, AR, RD). For these data, aperature size could not be determined.

For the Hilton site, we used the reefs where we had counted vermetids and also assessed vermetid status.

BCO-DMO Processing:

• added conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
• modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
• converted date from mm-dd-yy to yyyymmdd.
• replaced spaces with underscores.
• blank values replaced with no data value 'nd'.

Description from NSF abstract:
Ecological surprises are most likely to be manifest in diverse communities where many interactions remain uninvestigated. Coral reefs harbor much of the world's biodiversity, and recent studies by the investigators suggest that one overlooked, but potentially important, biological interaction involves vermetid gastropods. Vermetid gastropods are nonmobile, tube-building snails that feed via an extensive mucus net. Vermetids reduce coral growth by up to 80%, and coral survival by as much as 60%. Because effects vary among coral taxa, vermetids may substantially alter the structure of coral communities as well as the community of fishes and invertebrates that inhabit the coral reef.

The investigators will conduct a suite of experimental and observational studies that: 1) quantify the effects of four species of vermetids across coral species to assess if species effects and responses are concordant or idiosyncratic; 2) use meta-analysis to compare effects of vermetids relative to other coral stressors and determine the factors that influence variation in coral responses; 3) determine the role of coral commensals that inhabit the branching coral, Pocillopora, and evaluate how the development of the commensal assemblage modifies the deleterious effects of vermetids; 4) determine how vermetid mucus nets affect the local environment of corals and evaluate several hypotheses about proposed mechanisms; and 5) assess the long-term implications of vermetids on coral communities and the fishes and invertebrates that depend on the coral.

Note: The Principal Investigator, Dr. Craig W. Osenberg, was at the University of Florida at the time the NSF award was granted. Dr. Osenberg moved to the University of Georgia during the summer of 2014 (current contact information).