Natural Prey Preferences and Spatial Variability of Predation Pressure by Cyphoma gibbosum (Mollusca: Gastropoda) on Octocoral Communities off La Parguera, Puerto Rico

Table 1

Total octocoral species and the number of colonies harboring snails. The total number of band-transects (20 m²) surveyed in the entire study was 72.

Octocoral species	Total colonies	Number of snails	% Snails
Briareum asbestinum	130	16	12.3%
Pseudoterogorgia americana	827	61	7.3%
Plexaura flexuosa	532	34	6.3%
Gorgonia ventalina	1153	67	5.8%
Pseudoplexaura porosa	425	21	4.9%
Plexaura homomalla	90	4	4.4%
Plexaurella nutans	30	1	3.3%
Pseudoterogorgia acerosa	397	6	1.5%
Pterogorgia guadalupensis	2	1	—
Muricea spp.	1	1	—
Eunicea spp.	2	2	—
^*Erythropodium caribaeorum	1	1	—
^*Pterogorgia anceps	1	1	—
^*Pterogorgia citrina	1	1	—
^*Gorgonia flabellum	1	1
^*Gorgonia mariae	3	1	—

Low abundant octocoral species and colonies observed with snails outside of band-transects were not considered in downstream analyses.