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The relatlve roles of habltat quallty and predation were examined to test the hypothes~s that surv~vorshlp In a manne gastropod, Strombus glgas, IS enhanced by livlng In a g g r e g a t~o n s when young Enclosure and tether experiments were conducted In and around a juven~le aggregatlon located In the m~d d l e of a tidal flow field in the Bahamas whlch occupied ca 21 ha Elght s t a t~o n s were selected to represent a gradient from bare sand to h~g h seagrass blomass and a transect through the aggregatlon (~n s i d e density = 0 40 to 0 56 )uveniles m-' outside denslty SO 08 )uveniles m-2) Seagrass characteristics proved to be poor pred~ctors of habltat sultab~lity in terms of S glgas growth and compared w~t h the presence of conspecifics relatively unimportant predictors In terms of shelter from predation Although growth was > 0 1 mm d.' at all but 2 stations, juveniles (60 to 80 mm shell length) suffered higher proport~onal mortal~ty when tethered outside the aggregatlon (48 to 100%) than inside (18 to 20%) Mortal~ty showed a strong negatlve correlat~on w~t h wild S glgas density, suggesting that small-scale distnbut~on is greatly influenced by denslty-dependent phenomena Presence of conspecifics proved to be a n important factor affect~ng survivorshlp In seagrass meadows of the Bahamas KEY WORDS. Strombus gigas. Habitat quality Predat~on . Seagrass . T e t h e r~n g . Bahamas

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