restricted to hard bottom habitat for food resources. 

 Although numerous in hard bottom areas (it ranked 

 third in total number and second in total weight in 

 trawl catches over all eight trawlable stations and six 

 sampling periods combined in 1980 and 1981), Hae- 

 mulon aurolineatum has been characterized as a 

 reef-related species; i.e., it uses the reef for only part 

 of each day (Parrish and Zimmerman 1977). Randall 

 (1967) found sand-dwelling organisms in 16 tomtate 

 stomachs he examined, but the habitat of the deca- 

 pods, the predominant prey, could not be inferred 

 from his results. Parrish and Zimmerman (1977) 

 noted a diet dominated by sand-flat invertebrates for 

 an unspecified number of tomtate collected in the 

 Caribbean. Parrish and Zimmerman (1977) reported 

 nocturnal foraging, with tomtate sheltering in the 

 reef during the day. During extensive (about 70 

 dives) daytime scuba observations by the author off 

 of South Carolina and Georgia, no tomtate that ex- 

 hibited foraging behavior was seen, and large schools 

 were often noted "stacked up" at the edge of rock 

 ledges protruding out into sand areas. Apparently, 

 nocturnal feeding behavior described for tomtate in 

 the Caribbean is also typical for the species in the 

 South Atlantic Bight. Tomtate forage, apparently at 



night, on sand bottom areas of the shelf or in sand 

 patches often found adjacent to rock outcrops, 

 returning to the reefs for shelter during the day. This 

 behavior probably results in considerable energy 

 transfer, in the form of feces, from open sand bottom 

 areas of the shelf onto hard bottom reefs. 



The fact that two hard bottom invertebrate species 

 (Erichthonitcs brasiliensis and Luconacia incerta) 

 were common in tomtate stomachs and that many 

 additional hard bottom species (e.g., hydroids, many 

 amphipods, alpheid decapods, and bryozoans) are oc- 

 casionally eaten indicates that tomtate also forage to 

 a limited extent on hard bottom. 



The high diversity found in hard bottom inverte- 

 brate communities (Wenner et al. 1983) could be 

 attributed, in part, to predation by abundant and 

 diverse fish communities (Petersen 1979). However, 

 as noted by Wenner et al. (1983), available data in- 

 dicate that few dominant species of hard bottom 

 invertebrates are heavily preyed upon by fishes 

 (Sedberry and Nimmich^). Tomtate, an abundant 



^Sedberry, G. R., and T. A. Nimmich. Food habits of some fishes 

 associated with live bottom habitat off the South Atlantic coast of 

 the U.S.A. Manuscr. in prep. South Carolina Marine Resources 

 Research Institute, P.O. Box 12559, Charleston, SC 29412. 



Table 3. — Relative abundance (percent of total number of individuals) and electlvlty index values 

 (E) of dominant species in suction samples (Group A) and Haemulon aurolineatum stomachs 

 (Group B) by depth zone. Dominant species included those that ranked in the five most abundant 

 species within each Group (A or B) in either depth zone, for collections pooled for all years and 

 seasons. 



465 



