FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 87, NO. 1 



SURVEY I 

 Block 1 



MARKED SCALLOPS 

 3 



' y^y Natural Seagrass 



SURVEY I 



% Recovered 

 Block 



Dredge Island 



MARKED SCALLOPS 



SURVEY II 



LPA 



SURVEY II 



% Recovered 



Dredge Island 



Figure 3.— Distribution of recovered scallops as numbers per experimental unit (survey 56.25 m^). Survey I deployed 20 

 February 1986, and surveyed 30 March 1986. Survey II deployed 30 March 1986 and surveyed 7 April 1986. Five scallops 

 were originally deployed in each plot. Treatment types: NI = Natural Interior, NE = Natural Edge, HPA = High Perimeter 

 to Area, LPA = Low Perimeter to Area, B = Bare. 



scallop larvae or diminish food sources closer to the 

 island, making recruitment and feeding, not preda- 

 tion, a more likely factor influencing the existing 

 natural scallop distribution. 



Natural seeding of the eelgrass, together with the 

 transplanted treatments, should gradually provide 

 more protection for adult bay scallops and greater 

 amounts of vegetative cover for postveliger scallop 

 attachment, but this coverage will not occur within 

 the first year using transplanted eelgrass (Fonseca 

 et al. 1985). Since eelgrass must be transplanted in 

 the fall in North Carolina (Fonseca et al. 1985), the 



eelgrass transplants during the first year, will not 

 be of a size to provide habitat functions equivalent 

 to natural beds when bay scallop larvae settle in the 

 late winter. There is, therefore, a substantial time 

 interval in which eelgrass transplants in this area 

 do not have scallop habitat value equivalent to 

 natural beds. 



The creation of islands with dredge material in 

 coastal waters may result in a reduction of bay 

 scallop recruitment or survival within the area, as 

 well as increasing bird predation by providing them 

 with a substrate for dropping and opening scallops. 



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