Relationship between shape and trophic ecology of selected species of Sparids of the Caprolace coastal lagoon (Central Tyrrhenian sea)

Abstract

SynopsisThe shapes of juveniles of nine species of the family Sparidae (Diplodus annularis, Diplodus puntazzo, Diplodus sargus, Diplodus vulgaris, Lithognathus mormyrus, Pagellus acarne, Sarpa salpa, Sparus aurata, Spondyliosoma cantharus), collected in the tide channel of the Caprolace Lagoon (Central Tyrrhenian Sea-Italy) were studied using geometric morphometry. These species have different ecologies. The trophic ecology of each species, reported as TROPH values, are related to shape. For the first time the relationship between shape and trophic ecology in sparids was studied in a quantitative way giving an ecomorphological meaning to the shape differences. Mean shapes of carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous fish were extracted, analyzed and found to be unique. Strict herbivores such as Sarpa salpa have a small mouth gap; omnivores such as the four species of the genus Diplodus have a higher body (discoidal) and a caudal peduncle shorter and higher; carnivorous species such as Lithognathus mormyrus, possess a relatively larger head region, a larger mouth gap, a longer body and a caudal peduncle longer and narrower.

Feeding habits and diet overlap of juveniles of 2 sparids, Diplodus puntazzo(Walbaum, 1792) and Diplodus vulgaris (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817), from theNorth Aegean Sea of Turkey

“…In the spring and summer, relatively larger food amounts increased in the stomach contents, parallel to the increase of the sizes of both species. In contrast to the current study, Costa and Cataudella (2007) reported that adult individuals of D. vulgaris and D. puntazzo lived in the same environment but their feeding habits differed from each other. In addition, Sala and Ballesteros (1997) observed that there was no diet overlap between adult individuals of either species.…”

“…The feeding habits of D. vulgaris, whose mean length was the minimum, was based on relatively smaller preys in winter. Different factors, such as length, may cause changes in the feeding habits of fishes (Rosecchi, 1987;Sala and Ballesteros, 1997;Santos et al, 1998;Horta et al, 2004;Costa and Cataudella, 2007;Amany and Hatem, 2009). The feeding rates of many demersal fish species decrease when the temperature drops and feeding intensity is negatively related to the percentage of empty stomachs (Tyler, 1971;Bowman and Bowman, 1980).…”

“…The head morphology and jaw structure of D. puntazzo are more inclined to feeding on algae (Palma and Andrade, 2002;Costa and Cataudella, 2007). In the Medes Islands of Spain, D. puntazzo was reported to feed primarily on algae and bivalves (Sala and Ballesteros, 1997).…”

“…Morphology has a great influence on feeding strategy. The feeding strategy of juvenile individuals that have small jaws is to access food resources with minimum energy consumption in the settlement period (Costa and Cataudella, 2007). Settlement periods of both species were close to each other and they settled in the same areas (Vigliola et al, 1998).…”

Ecological characteristics and morphological-genetic differentiation in populations of European mudminnoow (Umbra krameri Walbaum, 1792) from Ba?ka, Ma?va and Semberija

“…Tako, od "Revolucije u morfometriji" (Rohlf & Marcus, 1993), pa do očekivanja da postane nova "tradicionalna" morfometrija (Adams et al, 2004), geometrijska morfometrija nalazi primenu u najrazličitijim taksonomskim, ekološkim i evolucionim studijama varijabilnosti veličine i oblika tela (Corti & Croseti, 1996;Loy et al, 1996Loy et al, , 1998Loy et al, , 1999aLoy et al, , 2000aWalker, 1997;Cavalcanti et al, 1999;Sará et al, 1999;Douglas et al, 2001;Rüber & Adams, 2001;Trapani, 2003;Klingenberg et al, 2003;Winans et al, 2003;Kassam et al, 2004;Gray et al, 2005;Nolte & Sheets, 2005;Johansson et al, 2006;Lopes et al, 2006;Collyer et al, 2007;Costa & Cataudella, 2007;Rincón et al, 2007;Maderbacher et al, 2008;Elmer et al, 2010;Hayden et al, 2010;Dornburg et al, 2011), pojedinih telesnih regiona (Loy et al, 1999b;Cavalcanti, 2004;Johansson et al, 2006;Krabbenhoft et al, 2009;Aguilar-Medrano et al, 2011;Dornburg et al, 2011;García-Rodríguez et al, 2011;Parsons et al, 2011;Frédérich et al, 2012), kao i glavenog skeleta riba (Frédérich et al, 2008a,b;…”