FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 87, NO. 2, 1989 



Table 4.— Habitat analysis. Ttie distribution of red abalones and red and purple sea urctiins 

 between rock and rock/sand tiabitats are tested against the null hypothesis that the animals 

 are uniformly distributed between these two habitat types. Data are pooled for 1978-82. 



Predator Populations 



We censused all known or suspected macroscopic 

 abalone predators (O'Connell 1953; Pilson and 

 Taylor 1961; Cox 1962; Burge et al. 1975; Tutschulte 

 1976; Ambrose 1984; Hines and Pearse 1982; Teg- 

 ner and Butler 1985, 1989) on the transects; the 

 results are presented in Table 5. The most abundant 

 predators were sea stars. Of the suite of species en- 

 countered at Johnsons Lee, only two are known to 



feed on healthy abalones. Breen (1980) reported that 

 Pycnopodia heliantkoides occasionally fed on H. 

 kamischatkana, and D. Parker^ observed a Pycno- 

 podia eating two juvenile (38 and 46 mm) red aba- 

 lones at Johnsons Lee in 1977. Schiel and Welden 

 (1987) recently reported observations of Pycnopodia 

 predation on juvenile red abalones in the laboratory. 



'D. 0. Parker, California Department of Fish and Game, 330 

 Golden Shore, Long Beach, CA 90802, pers. commun. 1986. 



Table 5.— Predator densities for 1978-82. 



324 



