Damselfish predation rates on artificial pellets made using varying concentrations of eggs of Acanthaster cf. solaris

Brief description

This dataset contains data collected by Zara-Louise Cowan of James Cook University in 2015 dealing with predation on the eggs of crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris)

Full description

Feeding experiments were conducted using nine species of damselfish collected at Lizard Island (14°40′S; 145°27′E) in the northern GBR in June 2015. Fish were placed individually in 32-L flow-through aquaria and starved for 24 h prior to feeding trials. Fish (n = 6–9 per species and treatment level) were randomly assigned to one of the six feeding treatments using varying proportions (0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100%) of eggs of Acanthaster sp. versus squid-mantle flesh. The fate of each food pellet of each treatment was recorded as: (1) accepted—the fish immediately retained the pellet; (2) mouthed and accepted—the fish retained the pellet after spitting it out one or more times; (3) mouthed and rejected—the fish rejected the pellet after capturing and spitting it out several times; (4) rejected—the fish rejected the pellet after capturing and spitting it out only once; or (5) untouched—the fish visually inspected the pellet and rejected it without mouthing.

The full methodology is available in the publication shown in the Related Publications link below.

Notes

This dataset is available as a spreadsheet in MS Excel (.xlsx) and Open Document formats (.ods)