NOTE Link and Almeida: Opportunistic feeding of Myoxocephalus octodecemspinosus on Georges Bank 



385 



previously a part of the system, is returned in a condition 

 much more readily available to benthic scavengers. Even 

 weak links in terms of diet or energy can be important dy- 

 namic links in terms of population regulation (reviewed in 

 Polls and Strong, 1996). The reintroduction of scallop vis- 

 cera may not be a large addition of energy to the Georges 

 Bank ecosystem, but it may be an important one for scul- 

 pin and other opportunist populations. 



There is evidence that energy derived from fishery dis- 

 cards can cause scavengers to become more abundant than 

 they would be w^ith ambient resources (Polls and Strong, 

 19961, or at least these discards can help scavengers main- 

 tain population abundance under disturbed circumstanc- 

 es (Fonds and Groenewold, 2000). Further studies may 

 indicate that events which produce food subsidies such 

 as those documented in this study may be more common 

 than generally suspected. Given the ubiquity of naval, 

 commercial, and private vessels on the ocean, it likely that 

 organic waste from these ships, from fishing activities, and 

 from similar processes serves as a significant "rain of food" 

 for benthic scavengers. 



Acknowledgments 



We thank M. McSherry for access to the vessel monitoring 

 system (VMS) data, L. Garrison for sending the data to us 

 daily while we were on the vessel, the crew and scientific 

 party of the RV Albat7-oss FV for assistance in collecting 

 the samples, V. Guida for help in recording the logsheets, 

 R. Reid and P. Valentine for stimulating discussions on 

 habitat and gear effects issues, and R. Reid, H. Lai, W. 

 Gabriel, M. Kaiser, and other reviewers for constructive 

 comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. 



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