Virtual Reality Camera Technology Facilitates Sampling of Interactions Between Reef Piscivores and Prey

AbstractPredation is an important process influencing the structure of fish communities. There are multiple approaches used to quantify predatory interactions, and all approaches are beneficial but have their limitations. For example, food habit studies only represent results of successful predation events, direct observations by divers are time limited by both depth and temperature as well as observer effects, acoustic approaches cannot directly identify species, and video has field-of-view constraints when using standard cameras. While no approach is without constraints, the recent availability of small off-the-shelf virtual reality (VR) video cameras that can be used in marine environments offers a more spatially comprehensive field-of-view for conducting studies of community composition and species interactions both on the seafloor and in the overlying water column. Here, we demonstrate an approach for collection and analysis of data from stationary VR video to quantify predator-prey interactions at subtropical reefs in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (NW Atlantic). This approach does not substitute for other widely used census and behavioral research approaches but augments those with unique analytical products and interpretation.