Diet of the queen angelfish Holacanthus ciliaris (Pomacanthidae) in São Pedro e São Paulo Archipelago, Brazil

Abstract

Holacanthus ciliaris is an important benthic-feeding reef fish but the relationship between the composition of its diet and prey availability is still unknown. Here we determined the quantitative composition of the gut contents of H. ciliaris in São Pedro e São Paulo Archipelago, Brazil (SPSPA), and compared it to the abundance of benthic organisms in the area. Holacanthus ciliaris has a relatively diversified diet with more than 30 prey species in SPSPA, especially sponges (13 spp., average 68% of gut contents total weight), algae (12 spp., 25%) and bryozoans (3 spp., 5%). In contrast, the benthic community is composed mainly of algae (average 81% of total cover) and followed by sponges (13%), bryozoans (5%), cnidarians (0.5%), polychaetes (0.5%) and tunicates (0.5%). The most common species were the algae Caulerpella ambigua and Caulerpa racemosa var. peltata; the bryozoan Margaretta buski; and the sponges Scopalina ruetzleri, Chondrosia collectrix and Clathria calla. The Manly resource selection function showed that H. ciliaris preferred the sponges Geodia neptuni, Erylus latens, Clathria calla and Asteropus niger, among others, and avoided common species such as the sponges Scopalina ruetzleri, Dysidea etheria and Hemimycale insularis and the algae Caulerpella ambigua, Bryopsis plumosa and Neomeris annulata. Kendall's rank correlation index showed no significant correlation between prey abundance in the field and in the diet of H. ciliaris, which seems to actively choose relatively rare and less defended prey.

Native species exploited by marine aquarium trade in Brazil

“…Similarly to other fish kept in aquaria, such as surgeonfish (mainly living plant consumers) and parrotfish (primarily detrital aggregates feeders), angelfish perform vital ecological roles in coral reef trophodynamics (e.g. controlling sponge and tunicate densities) (Hourigan et al 1989, Hill 1998, Sazima et al 1999, Andréa et al 2007, Konow & Bellwood 2011, Reis et al 2012 and, thus, their overexploitation and inter-specific relationships had also being object of concern (Hill 1998, Comeros-Raynal et al 2012). Nevertherless, the potential impact of fisheries targeting aquarium reef fish in Brazil is difficult to be evaluated, because little is known about the distribution of this type of fishing effort throughout the country and the actual level of threat to reef fish is hard to be assessed (Floeter et al 2006).…”

The Importance of Ceará State to the Brazilian Marine Ornamental Fish Exports

“…The ecological effects of fisheries on pomacanthid populations are poorly known. Angelfishes may occupy a variety of trophic niches (Konow & Bellwood, 2011), and are typically considered spongivorous in Brazil -as in the Caribbean (Hourigan et al, 1989;Hill, 1998;Andréa et al, 2007;Reis et al, 2012) -, and, so, experiments involving their removal from reefs have resulted in decreasing coral covers caused by sponge overgrowth (Hill, 1998). However, some other works report ontogenetic variations in the foraging habit of Brazilian pomacanthids (Sazima et al, 1999) and the prevalence of algae rather than sponge in their gut contents, according to local food availability and other factors Reis et al, 2012).…”

Spongivory by Fishes on Southwestern Atlantic Coral Reefs: No Evidence of Top-Down Control on Sponge Assemblages

“…Different approaches have been used to investigate the potential effect of predation by reef fishes, for instance by using stomach content analysis (Randall and Hartman, 1968;Andréa et al, 2007;Reis et al, 2013) and fish feeding activity observations (Longo and Floeter, 2012;Pratchett et al, 2014). Although there is information about fish predation pressure on sponge assemblages (Pawlik et al, 2018), little is known about the spongivorous fish foraging behavior.…”

“…These conditions have been considered marginal for coral optimal growth, so these reefs are known as marginal coral reefs (Leão et al, 2003;Suggett et al, 2012;Loiola et al, 2013). A small number of studies have conducted spongivorous fish stomach content analysis in rock (Andréa et al, 2007;Batista et al, 2012) or coral reefs (Reis et al, 2013) in Brazil and spongivorous feeding behavior was not previously investigated.…”