Diet composition and gut microbiome of 0-group European plaice Pleuronectes platessa L. - Strong homogeneity and subtle spatial and temporal differences

Spatial variation in the gastrointestinal microbiome, diet, and nutritional condition of a juvenile flatfish among coastal habitats

“…Nematodes and platyhelminthes have not previously been reported as YOY plaice prey at beaches on the west coast of Scotland (Edwards & Steele 1968, Steele et al 1970, Poxton et al 1983 but nematodes have been encountered in other areas (Amara et al 2001, Heindler et al 2019.…”

“…Our results contrast with the relative homogeneity at ca. 10 -100 km spatial scales in the diets and gut microbiota of YOY plaice found by Heindler et al (2019) in the eastern English Channel and southern North Sea.…”

“…This may be due to the fact that the area studied by Heindler et al (2019), in contrast to the west coast of Scotland, is a relatively open stretch of coast, perhaps offering more uniform environmental conditions and prey assemblages. An alternative explanation is that samples used for regional comparisons by Heindler et al (2019) were pooled from several sites, themselves separated by tens of kilometres, and across a time window spanning several months: pooling may have smoothed out differences expected based on known small-scale (100s of metres, daily) spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the diet and growth of YOY plaice.…”

“…Diets differed considerably between beaches, with fish at Tralee having fuller stomachs and feeding almost exclusively on polychaetes and those at Caolisport preying predominantly on crustaceans. The metabarcoding study of YOY plaice by Heindler et al (2019) found that diets along a > 100 km stretch of open coastline in the eastern English Channel and southern North Sea were remarkably stable and dominated by the crustacean Crangon crangon (72%) and the polychaete Owenia fusiformis (9%). They reported that diets changed little between spring and summer although there were small differences with body size and among years.…”

“…In a recent metabarcoding study, Heindler et al (2019) reported relative homogeneity in the diets and gut microbiota of YOY plaice across four geographic regions of open coast in the eastern English Channel and southern North Sea. This study was designed to be both spatially and temporally extensive.…”