Biologia alimentar de quatro espécies simpátricas de Cheirodontinae (Characiformes, Characidae) do rio Ceará Mirim, Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Feeding biology of four sympatric Cheirodontinae species (Characiformes, Characidae) from Ceará Mirim River, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This study was carried in Ceará Mirim River, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. At this location, the river shows high water transparency and predominance of aquatic macrophytes in the margins. This study aims to describe the feeding habits and verify the presence of feeding overlap in the diet of four sympatric species of Cheirodontinae: Compsura heterura Eigenmann, 1915 (n= 452), Serrapinnus heterodon (Eigenmann, 1915) (n= 473), S. piaba (Lütken, 1875) (n= 509) and Serrapinnus sp. A (n= 313). The specimens were collected monthly, from April 2001 to April 2002, using seine nets. The stomach contents were analyzed using the frequency of occurrence, percentage composition and an alimentary importance index. The feeding overlap was calculated through the index of Morisita between pairs of species. The species did not showed seasonal variation in the diet. Algae, vegetal matter, microcrustaceans and autochthonous insects were predominant in the species diet. Serrapinnus heterodon and Serrapinnus sp. A presented omnivorous feeding behaviour, while C. heterura and S. piaba showed omnivorous feeding behaviour with tendency to herbivory. In addition, the species showed high feeding overlap due to the consumption of similar items. These results suggest that food resources are abundant and enough to be partioned by these four omnivorous sympatric species.

Food-resource partitioning among fish species from a first-order stream in northwestern Paraná, Brazil

“…Nevertheless, Zaret & Rand (1971), Tófoli et al (2010) and Alves et al (2011) recorded high values of overlap during the rainy season. In contrast, other studies have found no difference in the degree of overlap between the hydrological periods (Bastos, 2002;Dias & Fialho, 2009Johnson & Arunachalam, 2012), similarly to our results.…”

“…However, this high overlap was probably associated with the high abundance of these resources Dias & Fialho, 2009;Uieda & Pinto, 2011).…”

Feeding ecology of Serrapinnus notomelas (Characiformes: Cheirodontinae) in small forest streams in the Machado River basin, Rondônia, Brazil

“…Although the diet of S. notomelas included material of animal origin, the species fed essentially on plant items during both seasons. For this reason, it is reasonable to classify the species as omnivorous with tendency to show herbivorous behavior, as observed in other studies (Castro et al 2004;Dias and Fialho 2009;Brandão-Gonçalves et al 2010).…”

Estrutura trófica da ictiofauna em um reservatório do semiárido brasileiro

“…Windell & Bowen (1978) enfatizaram a importância na utilização desses estudos ao inseri-los como base para o entendimento das relações existentes entre a ictiofauna e seu hábitat, além de subsidiar práticas de conservação e manejo visando o uso sustentável das espécies nativas. No semiárido, especificamente no Rio Grande do Norte (RN), destacando-se estudos como os realizados na lagoa Boa Cica (Canan et al, 1997), na lagoa Redonda (Gurgel et al, 1994(Gurgel et al, , 1998, na lagoa do Jiqui (Gurgel & Canan, 1999), na lagoa de Extremoz (Raposo & Gurgel, 2003), na lagoa do Piató (Gavilan-Leandro et al, 2009;Silva et al, 2012), no reservatório Riacho da Cruz (Teixeira & Gurgel, 2004), no açude Corredor (Gurgel et al, 2002), no açude Marechal Dutra (Montenegro et al, 2011;Pessoa et al, 2013), no rio Piranhas-Açu (Magalhães et al, 1990;Gurgel et al, 2002), no rio Ceará Mirim (Andrade et al, 2000;Gurgel et al, 2005;Dias & Fialho, 2009) e no rio Seridó (Mendes et al, 2011).…”