Abstract: Hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones, are major disturbances that play a critical role structuring plant and animal communities, both space and time. Hurricanes alter habitat structure primarily via strong wind damage and usually bring large amounts of rainfall that create floods and landslides. In tropical streams, hurricanes increase sunlight availability and create major pulses of detritus, altering basal resources, species composition and dominance. In Puerto Rico, we observed increases in shrimp density following hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. We hypothesized that the increase is associated with higher food availability after the hurricane that would result in: A) an increase the abundance of gravid shrimps during the first-year post-hurricane and B) an increase in the proportion of juvenile individuals over time. We sampled shrimps monthly for 34 months using baited traps in 18 pools along two 100m reaches. Shrimp were identified and measured, and the number of gravid females were recorded. Results showed the expected increase in shrimp density per pool after the hurricanes. The effect lasted for 24 months. Species diversity and evenness remained unchanged. Densities were associated with the amount of detritus in pools, but not with algal biomass. Overall, shrimp responses to hurricane disturbance appear to be driven by short term pulses of resources following hurricane disturbance.
