Regional variation in the intensity of fish predation on tethered brittle stars and crabs was measured at 30-33 m depths in the rocky subtidal zone at seven sites representing coastal and offshore regions of the Gulf of Maine, USA. Analysis of covariance comparing the slopes of brittle star survivorship curves followed by multiple comparisons tests revealed five groupings of sites, with significantly greater predation rates in the two offshore than in the three coastal groups. Brittle stars tethered at the three offshore sites were consumed primarily by cod, Gadus morhua, with 60-100% prey mortality occuring in 2.5 h. In striking contrast, only 6-28% of brittle star prey was consumed in the same amount of time at the four coastal sites, which were dominated by cunner, Tautogolabrus adspersus. In several coastal trials, a majority of brittle star prey remained after 24 h. The pattern of higher predation offshore held for rock crabs as well with only 2.7% of tethered crabs consumed (n=36) at coastal sites versus 57.8% of crabs (n=64) consumed at offshore sites. Another important predatory fish, the wolffish, Anarhichas lupus, consumed more tethered crabs than brittle stars. Videos and time-lapse movies indicated that cod and wolffish were significantly more abundant at offshore than at coastal sites. Three hundred years of fishing pressure in New England has severely depleted stocks of at least one important benthic predator, the cod, in coastal waters. We speculate that this human-induced predator removal has lowered predation pressure on crabs and other large mobile epibenthos in deep coastal communities. Transect data indicate that coastal sites with few cod support significantly higher densities of crabs than offshore sites with abundant cod.

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Regional variation in fish predation intensity: a historical perspective in the Gulf of Maine.

Aim To review and synthesize multiple lines of evidence that describe the spatial patterns of land use associated with prehistoric and early historical Native American societies in eastern North America in order to better characterize the type, spatial extent and temporal persistence of past land use Location Temperate forests of eastern North America, and the Eastern Woodlands cultural region Methods Ethnohistorical accounts, archaeological data, historical land surveys and palaeoecological records describing indigenous forms of silviculture and agriculture were evaluated across scales ranging from local (10 0 km) to regional (10 2 km) to produce a synthetic description of land-use characteristics Results Indigenous land-use practices created patches of distinct ecological conditions within a heterogeneous mosaic of ecosystem types At all scales, patch location was dynamic, and patches underwent recurrent periods of expansion, contraction and abandonment Land-use patches varied in their extent and persistence, and are broadly categorized as silvicultural (management of undomesticated woodland taxa) or agricultural (cultivation of domesticated taxa) Silvicultural patches persisted for centuries and extended kilometres to tens of kilometres around settlements and travel corridors The dynamics of agricultural patches varied among groups, with persistence ranging from decades to centuries and extent ranging from less than a kilometre to tens of kilometres around settlements Beyond patch boundaries, human impacts on ecosystems become indistinguishable from other drivers of environmental heterogeneity These characteristics of patches are evident across scales and multiple lines of evidence Main conclusions Our findings challenge the view that prehistoric human impacts on vegetation were widespread and ubiquitous, and build on previous work showing these impacts to be more localized and heterogeneous by providing quantitative descriptions of land-use patch characteristics Collaborative efforts that combine multiple data sources are needed to refine these descriptions and generate more precise measures of land-use pattern to further investigate the history of human impacts on the Earth system

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jbi.12386

Defining the spatial patterns of historical land use associated with the indigenous societies of eastern North America

The farmers o f piedmont Virginia’s Tye River Valley adapted their agriculture to a commercial frontier during the eighteenth century. This ‘frontier agroecosystem’ optimized labor returns by exploiting the stored fertility o f mature ecosystems at the expense of conservation, but proved vulnerable to population growth and soil exhaustion. Productivity stagnated and out-migration increased after the Revolution, and the gentry’s promotion of economic development was stymied by the lim ited build-up o f capital and consumerism. The hard-pressed frontier agroecosystem could not provide the reliable commercial returns needed to promote dynamic development or stable neighborhoods. During the early nineteenth century, prominent planters began to demand that Virginia farming be intensified that land productivity be maximized, rather than labor productivity. This strategy, many claimed, would anchor farm families while promoting economic independence. Those among the Tye Valley’s ordinary farmers who practiced traditional intensification increased land productivity through increased labor investment found it led to declining labor productivity, resulting in lower profits, declining consumer opportunities, and diminished political influence. Practical plantation owners with commercial ambitions turned to entrepreneurial intensification the build up of per-acre productivity through the importation o f improved seed, livestock, fertilizer, and machinery. This would also maintain or even improve labor productivity. To attract the capital needed to purchase these imports, the Valley’s leaders had to abandon colonial for capitalist politics, and practice the natural resource conservation necessary to use farmland to insure long-term investments. The commercial and ecological self-sufficiency idealized by republican ‘high farmers’ was compromised. Many Tye Valley farmers, however, resisted the dependence implicit in capitalist agriculture through a popular republicanism that accepted lower living standards and curtailed opportunity as the price o f agrarian independence. Farmers in the lower classes pursued traditional intensification on their land while trying to maintain common access to the ‘free’ resources left over from the frontier property system. They also resisted attempts by the district’s entrepreneurial planter-politicians to modernize Virginia’s political economy and force the state into a capitalist economy. High crop prices during the 1850s, however, helped the Valley’s capitalist farmers reinvest profits in modernized cultivation. By I860, they had gone far toward incorporating the landscape o f the Tye River Valley into a capitalist agroecosystem. Popular resistance, however, slowed the development o f the capital needed for a full transformation. The region therefore still lagged in the intensity o f its cultivation and the profits its farming generated. Valley farmers thus found entrepreneurial farming, elite republicanism, and traditional intensification in jeopardy on the eve o f the C ivil War.

The agroecologies of a southern community : the Tye River Valley of Virginia, 1730-1860

Introduction Chapter 1. "Commutative Goodnesse": Food and Leadership Chapter 2. "Art of Authority": Hunger, Plenty, and the Common Stores Chapter 3. "By Shewing Power Purchasing Authoritie": Gender, Status, and Food Exchanges Chapter 4. "Would Rather Want Then Borrow, or Starve Then Not Pay": Refiguring English Dependency Chapter 5. "A Continuall and Dayly Table for Gentlemen of Fashion": Eating Like a Governor Chapter 6. "To Manifest the Greater State": English and Indians at Table Conclusion. "When Flesh Was Food": Reimagining the Early Period after 1660 Notes Index Acknowledgments

Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World

Early in 1609, with Jamestown on the verge of starvation and relations with the Powhatan Indians deteriorating, John Smith led hismen on a desperate, often violent canvass for food. After extracting corn from Powhatan at gunpoint, Smith’s party sought out the ruler’s brother, Opechancanough. Surrounded by 700 warriors (he claims), Smith evened the odds by seizing the Indian leader, who begged for release. That ‘‘unpardonable affront’’ (Rountree 50) to warrior honor was followed by a full-throated harangue:

Philip L. Barbour

Papers

The Complete Works of Captain John Smith. 3 vols.