Kennedy 9602883 Victor S. Kennedy for Graduate Student, William C. Walton This dissertation enhancement award will support doctoral candidate William C. Walton for three months while in Australia to experimentally determine the effect of the invasive, predatory green crab, Carcinus maenas, upon the recovery of the Tasmanian doughboy scallop, Pecten fumatus, fishery. Mr. Walton will undertake his work at the laboratories of Drs. Ronald Thresher and Chad Hewitt at the Centre for Research on Introduced Marine Pests (CRIMP), Division of Fisheries, Institute of Natural Resources and Environment, Hobart, Tasmania. Mr. Walton is currently undertaking similar research on the effect of the nonindigenous C. maenas upon the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians , fishery in Massachusetts. This unique opportunity to integrate the two studies will test the generality of impacts of the same invader upon different prey and may provide a valuable predictive tool to fishery managers. Mr. Walton will experimentally quantify the importance of green crab predation upon P. fumatus during the summer by determining 1) overall predation losses (predator exclusions), 2) green crab population dynamics (field surveys), 3) predator-prey interactions (laboratory feeding trials) , and green crab predation rates upon scallops (predator enclosures). Experimental quantification of interactions, and the subsequent comparisons, are essential for the broadening of our scope of ecological reference.
