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waders and their estuarine food supplies - Vlaams Instituut voor de ...

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PREDICTING SEASONAL AND ANNUAL FLUCTUATIONS IN THE LOCAL EXPLOITION OF DIFFERENT PREY<br />

kited directly from the length frequencv distribution in<br />

the monthly samples, but this was usually impossible<br />

because two or even more year classes occurred together.<br />

The year classes v. ere i<strong>de</strong>ntified using the Bhattaeharya<br />

method for separating cohorts (MPA module<br />

of the Compleat ELEFAN software package, version<br />

1.0: Gayanilo et nl. 1988). This technique ma<strong>de</strong> it possible<br />

lo estimate the monthly mortality <strong>and</strong> growth in<br />

length for ihe separate cohorts.<br />

Estimating prey production Using the relationships<br />

between size <strong>and</strong> llesh weight, <strong>de</strong>termined for all sampling<br />

data, we also calculated for each cohort the fluctuation<br />

in the biomass of ihe average indiv idual <strong>and</strong> for<br />

the cohort population as a whole. This allowed us to<br />

calculate the production per species, separately for the<br />

age classes. The production can be estimated by<br />

adding either the growth increments or the weight<br />

losses caused by size-<strong>de</strong>pen<strong>de</strong>nt mortality (Crisp<br />

1984). We estimated the production by calculation of<br />

the monthly weight loss since this ma<strong>de</strong> it possible to<br />

indicate to what <strong>de</strong>gree the elimination of biomass due<br />

to prey moriality had been <strong>de</strong>termined by the predation<br />

pressure of the Oystercatchers.<br />

The elimination of the prey biomass is <strong>de</strong>termined<br />

by the product of two terms: the mean weight of the<br />

pre) averaged over two consecutive sampling dale's<br />

<strong>and</strong> the rfayrr-flSf in the pre" <strong>de</strong>nshj between both sample<br />

dates. Both, prey weight <strong>and</strong> the numbers disappeared,<br />

were calculated separately per cohort <strong>and</strong> recalculated<br />

per month if the intervening period was<br />

longer than a month. The eliminated biomass per cohort<br />

was summed to arrive at the total monthly elimination<br />

of biomass per prey species. Since Oystercatchers<br />

do not take Cockles < 10 mm. Macoma < 11 mm<br />

<strong>and</strong> the Soft-shell Clam Mya arenaria < 17 mm<br />

(Zwarts ei al. 1996a). the elimination of biomass belonging<br />

to the size classes ignored by Oystercatchers<br />

will be given separately, as well as for prey living out<br />

nl reach of ihe bill. i.e. Mya living more llian 6 cm below<br />

the surface (Zwarts & Wanink 1984).<br />

Burying <strong>de</strong>pth The burying <strong>de</strong>pth of the bivalves was<br />

measured once or twice a month during seven years<br />

(1980-1986). The methods have been <strong>de</strong>scribed by<br />

Zwarts & Wanink (1989). The combination of biomass<br />

samples <strong>and</strong> the <strong>de</strong>pth measuremenis was used to <strong>de</strong>scribe<br />

the annual fluctuation in the biomass acluallv<br />

View Irom the sea wall over Ihe study area. The observation tower was built in the middle of the .Nes area at the cross of two<br />

237

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