1 1 Drivers of octopus abundance and density in an anchialine lake: 2 a 30 year comparison 3 4 Duncan A. O’Brien a,d* -
[email protected] 5 Michelle L. Taylor a -
[email protected] 6 Heather D. Masonjones b -
[email protected] 7 Philipp H. Boersch-Supan c -
[email protected] 8 Owen R. O’Shea d -
[email protected] 9 10 a School of Life Sciences, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK 11 b Biology Department, University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida 33596, USA 12 c British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, IP24 2PU, UK and Department of 13 Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA 14 d The Centre for Ocean Research and Education (CORE), PO Box 255-16, Gregory Town, 15 Eleuthera, The Bahamas 16 17 *Corresponding author 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 2 27 Abstract 28 Anchialine systems are isolated from the sea and often support species’ populations distinct from 29 their marine counterparts. Sweetings Pond, an anchialine lake on the island of Eleuthera in The 30 Bahamas was identified as a site of high Caribbean reef octopus, Octopus briareus (Robson, 31 1929) density, relative to coastal populations. However, observed deterioration in local benthic 32 habitat and increased anthropogenic influence over the last 30 years imply that this octopus 33 population may have undergone density and distribution shifts in response to these changing 34 conditions. Here, we assess the system wide octopus density to provide an updated estimate. We 35 hypothesize that despite depressed habitat availability in the 1980s, it will now support octopus 36 densities less than historical estimates because of increasing human impact on the system.