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Summary Processes affecting the growth and mortality of the juvenile benthic life-stages that immediately follow larval metamorphosis and settlement are as important as those processes controlling the supply of settling larvae or later interactions among established adults. In addition, the ecology of juveniles is of ten distinctly different from that of other life-stages, including differences in interactions with predators and competitors and responses to the physical environment. In particular, newly-settled stages of ten experience quantitatively or qualitatively different predation than older life-stages. We have documented this in a New England hard substrate community where the wrasse, Tautogolabrus adspersus, and two species of tiny gastropods, Mitrella lunata and Anachis lafresnayi, prey on newly-settled andjuvenile ascidians but not on adults. An extensive series of field experiments was conducted using artificial pilings placed subtidally. Results demonstrated that (1) the predators were extremely active and fairly specific in their prey, (2) predators could eliminate prey species regardless of settlement densities, (3) predation varied drastically with life-stage, and (4) predators control community structure and composition by altering the number of settling larvae that survived their first several weeks to become identifiable recruits. Because of differences in predator abundances the development and species dominance within the community varied drastically between sites.
Osman et al. (Sun,) studied this question.