Meeting Abstract
Increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has resulted in global ocean warming and acidification. Little research has been conducted on how these ocean changes will impact predatory behavior of invertebrates such as cephalopods. Cephalopods have a large impact on marine food webs, owing to their abundance, high growth rates and flexible predatory behavior. Due to the ecological importance of cephalopods, changes in behavior could have far-reaching consequences in marine ecosystems. We measured the effects of two-week exposure to projected near-future carbon dioxide and temperature levels on the predatory behaviors of Octopus rubescens such as latency to attack prey, predator-prey orientation, striking distance, body pattern choice during attack sequence, and drill-hole localization. These data will help us to determine if elevated carbon-dioxide and temperature have an effect on the predatory behavior and strategies on O. rubescens.
