The results reported here support the contention that juvenile M. latisulcatus actively select areas of sand; since predation rates were too low to analyse, we do not know if differential predation also has a role to play in determining relative abundance between habitat types. Provided sand was present, other structures (artificial or real seagrass) had little influence on which habitat was selected.
These results suggest that seagrass may be avoided to a certain extent, although not completely.
Thus, there should be fewer prawns
in seagrass than over bare substrate, although they should still be present in the former areas.
If sand is available within seagrass beds, however, there appears to be no reason for prawns to avoid them. This preference for habitats containing sand appears to be related to the burying behaviour exhibited when inactive.
Although it could not be accurately quantified, the majority of inactive prawns were buried in sand, especially when predators were present.
An important point to note is that in the laboratory trial, the artificial seagrass had no sub-sediment structure, and the real seagrass only had minimal rhizome and root biomass.
This structure might provide a barrier to prawns burying into the substrate, possibly further explaining the lower densities of M.larisulcatus in seagrass beds.