Naticid drilling predation from tidal flats in northern Patagonia, SW Atlantic

Abstract

Naticids and muricids are the main drilling gastropod families that leave a characteristic hole in their shelled prey. Drilling predation can be evaluated along spatial scales, and different latitudinal patterns (equatorward, poleward, mid-latitude peaks or no trend at all) have already been described. For Argentine Patagonia, most studies have analysed muricid predation, but scant information is available on naticid predation. This study provides evidence of predation by the moon snail Notocochlis isabelleana on a thin and fragile burrowing bivalve, Darina solenoides, along the intertidal sandflats at Pozo Salado, San Matías Gulf, in northern Patagonia. To estimate the incidence of predation, articulated specimens of Darina solenoides (N = 432) were randomly collected in the intertidal zone. Drill holes (N = 94) were recorded in shell lengths ranging between 10 and 35 mm. Taking into account previous studies in the region, the intensity of mortality by drilling (22%) constitutes a higher value than expected for this latitude. These results may help explain local patterns in a particular site in northern Patagonia which has been previously identified as an outlier, but further studies aimed at evaluating macrogeographic patterns are necessary for a better understanding of the regional factors that might be governing these predator–prey interactions.

Drilling predation on Antarctic tusk shells: first records on Recent scaphopods from the Southern Hemisphere

“…Numerous studies have reported naticid drilling predation mainly on bivalves and gastropods in both modern and fossil settings (Guerrero & Reyment 1988, Kelley & Hansen 2003, Gordillo et al 2020, among many others), but only a few records of drilling predation on fossil scaphopods have been reported from the Northern Hemisphere (e.g. Yochelson et al 1983, Klompmaker 2011, Li et al 2011), and only one record is available from the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sections in Rajahmundry, India, located in the Southern Hemisphere during that time (Mallick et al 2017).…”

Predatory drilling on molluscan assemblages along the Patagonian shelf (southern Argentina)

“…Holes with circular to oval outlines were considered as drill holes, and therefore indicators of biotic interactions. Previous works in Patagonia and southern South America (Gordillo, 1998(Gordillo, , 2013Gordillo and Amuchástegui, 1998;Gordillo et al, 2010Gordillo et al, , 2020 were used as a reference for identifying these predatory marks.…”

“…In Argentinean Patagonia, most of the available information on drilling predation associated with benthic communities comes from the shallow coastal environment, both on hard and soft bottoms (Martinelli et al, 2013;Gordillo and Archuby, 2014;Archuby and Gordillo, 2018;Gordillo et al, 2020). Other works in coastal environments were carried out further south, in Tierra del Fuego, mainly in the Beagle Channel (Gordillo, 1998(Gordillo, , 2001Gordillo and Amuchástegui, 1998;Gordillo and Archuby, 2012).…”

Drilling predation on Early Jurassic bivalves and behavioral patterns of the presumed gastropod predator—evidence from Pliensbachian soft-bottom deposits of northern Germany

“…Predation is one of the selective agents in nature and is regarded as a strong evolutionary driver (Vermeij 1987). Drilling predation is a common reason for mortality in Recent benthic mollusks (e.g., Vermeij 1980; Chiba and Arai 2014; Gordillo et al 2020), but the intensity of this type of predatory interaction differs spatially (Visaggi and Kelley 2015) and temporally (Kelley and Hansen 2006).…”