Mussel beds in deeper water provide an unusual situation for competitive interactions between the seastars Leptasterias polaris and Asterias vulgaris

Abstract

The common seastars Leptasterias polaris and Asterias vulgaris show competitive interactions in shallow subtidal communities in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, particularly during summer when aggregations of the two seastars forage on mussel beds at 1–2 m in depth. We examined interactions between the two seastars in a different situation, in a mussel bed at 6 m in depth (a rare situation in this region). In the deeper mussel bed, seastars were three times more abundant than in the shallower beds, and the mussels were larger. The deeper bed disappeared rapidly due to the intense predation. Although decreased prey abundance should have favored interference interactions, we did not detect either partitioning of mussels by size or avoidance of A. vulgaris by L. polaris as previously reported when mussels are in short supply in shallower water. The lack of an avoidance behavior by L. polaris, together with the higher proportion of L. polaris than A. vulgaris that were feeding, suggests that in this situation, the dominance of A. vulgaris (observed in shallower water) is attenuated, or that L. polaris may dominate.