Spatial variation in the feeding strategies of Mediterranean fish: flatfish and mullet in the Gulf of Gaeta (Italy)

Cicala, Davide; Calizza, Edoardo; Careddu, Giulio; Fiorentino, Federico; Caputi, Simona Sporta; Rossi, Loreto; Costantini, Maria Letizia

doi:10.1007/s10452-019-09706-3

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…However, the comparison with this prior work is limited because they did not analyse isotopic composition of food sources. In contrast, the differentiation of the organic matter size fractions used in the present study revealed differences in food habits between M. curema and M. liza, which were not possible in other works that analysed the organic matter pool as a single larger (1.2-300 μm) fraction (Faye et al, 2011;Le Loc'h et al, 2015;Carassou et al, 2017;Cicala et al, 2019).…”

Section: Assimilated Diet and Isotopic Niche Overlap Inferred By Siacontrasting

confidence: 92%

“…Compared with previous studies (e.g. Faye et al, 2011;Le Loc'h et al, 2015;Carassou et al, 2017;Cicala et al, 2019) that analysed bulk organic matter that included all size fractions, our analyses provide new isotopic evidence supporting the hypothesis that juvenile mullets exhibit particle preferences during feeding. Higher assimilation of SOM with size particles between 68 and 250 μm suggests a feeding preference for microphytobenthos (20-200 μm), compared with smaller cell sizes such as nanophytobenthos (2-20 μm) and picophytobenthos (0.2-2 μm).…”

Section: Assimilated Diet and Isotopic Niche Overlap Inferred By Siasupporting

confidence: 80%

“…This last caveat was probably due to the difficulty to obtain pure samples of food items (microorganisms, especially microalgae) in an adequate amount to allow the determination of isotopic composition. Instead of analysing the isotopic composition of particular food items, prior studies had analysed particulate organic matter in suspension (POM) or in the sediment (SOM) as proxies for phytoplankton and phytobenthos, respectively, considering only single large (1.2-300 μm) pools of organic matter (Faye et al, 2011;Le Loc'h et al, 2015;Carassou et al, 2017;Cicala et al, 2019). This approach, however, does not allow differentiation among particle size classes such as picoplankton, nanoplankton and microplankton (Sieburth et al, 1978).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trophic niches and diet shifts of juvenile mullet species coexisting in marine and estuarine habitats

et al. 2021

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Food partitioning among coexisting species is often considered advantageous to minimize niche overlap and avoid inter-specific competition. Congeneric fish species such as the mullets Mugil curema and Mugil liza, which co-occur across marine and estuarine habitats, are good models to evaluate resource use and niche overlap or partitioning. We used stomach contents (SCA) and stable isotope analysis (SIA) to assess potential trophic shifts and changes in niche overlap associated with the mullets transitioning from marine to estuarine habitats. SIA included different fractions of organic matter in suspension and in the sediment to estimate the contribution of micro, nano and pico-organisms to the mullets’ diets. We hypothesized higher resource partitioning in the less resource-diverse system (marine surf-zone) than in the more diverse one (estuary). SCA showed diet differences between M. curema and M. liza according to the habitat. They showed distinct diets in the marine area (P < 0.001), but similar diets in the estuary (P = 0.226). A lower niche breadth was observed for both species in the marine area (M. curema = 0.03, M. liza = 0.06) compared with the estuary (M. curema = 0.14, M. liza = 0.16). Isotopic niches of both species were higher in the estuary (64.7%) compared with the marine area (0.7%). These findings corroborated our hypothesis of higher food partitioning in the marine surf-zone. We also demonstrated using SIA the shift from planktonic to benthic feeding following the recruitment of the mullets from the surf-zone into the estuary.

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Section: Assimilated Diet and Isotopic Niche Overlap Inferred By Siacontrasting

confidence: 92%

Section: Assimilated Diet and Isotopic Niche Overlap Inferred By Siasupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trophic niches and diet shifts of juvenile mullet species coexisting in marine and estuarine habitats

et al. 2021

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“…It is acknowledged that increased N-loads promote significant changes in aquatic productivity [76] that could potentially affect the composition of the prey community [77,78]. This in turn might be reflected in the feeding behaviour of consumers at all trophic levels [2,7,79].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing Isotopic Food Webs of Two Economically Important Fish in Mediterranean Coastal Lakes with Different Trophic Status

et al. 2020

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Transitional waters are highly productive ecosystems, providing essential goods and services to the biosphere and human population. Human influence in coastal areas exposes these ecosystems to continuous internal and external disturbance. Nitrogen-loads can affect the composition of the resident community and the trophic relationships between and within species, including fish. Based on carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope analyses of individuals, we explored the feeding behaviour of two ecologically and economically important omnivorous fish, the eel Anguilla anguilla and the seabream Diplodus annularis, in three neighbouring lakes characterised by different trophic conditions. We found that A. anguilla showed greater generalism in the eutrophic lake due to the increased contribution of basal resources and invertebrates to its diet. By contrast, the diet of D. annularis, which was mainly based on invertebrate species, became more specialised, focusing especially on polychaetes. Our results suggest that changes in macroinvertebrate and fish community composition, coupled with anthropogenic pressure, affect the trophic strategies of high trophic level consumers such as A. anguilla and D. annularis. Detailed food web descriptions based on the feeding choices of isotopic trophospecies (here Isotopic Trophic Units, ITUs) enable identification of the prey taxa crucial for the persistence of omnivorous fish stocks, thus providing useful information for their management and habitat conservation.

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“…Alternatively, stable isotope analysis (SIA) of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) has been increasingly applied to bears 17 , 20 , 24 , 26 – 28 . Based on whole organisms or samples of their tissues 29 – 32 , SIA is based on the evidence that isotopic values are directly related to the assimilated diet, since tissues are synthetized from the nutrients formerly assimilated, reflecting their isotopic composition in a predictable manner 33 , 34 . More recently, Bayesian mixing models have been used to discriminate the proportional contributions of different assimilated food items to the consumer diet 28 , 35 – 37 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis

Careddu

Ciucci

Mondovì

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) survive in an isolated and critically endangered population, and their food habits have been studied using traditional scat analysis. To complement current dietary knowledge, we applied Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) to non-invasively collected bear hairs that had been individually recognized through multilocus genotyping. We analysed carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes of hair sections and bear key foods in a Bayesian mixing models framework to reconstruct the assimilated diet on a seasonal basis and to assess gender and management status effects. In total, we analysed 34 different seasonal bear key foods and 35 hair samples belonging to 27 different bears (16 females and 11 males) collected during a population survey in 2014. Most bears showed wide δ15N and δ13C ranges and individual differences in seasonal isotopic patterns. Vegetable matter (herbs, fleshy fruits and hard mast) represented the major component of the assimilated diet across the dietary seasons, whereas vegetable crops were rarely and C4 plants (i.e., corn) never consumed. We confirmed an overall low consumption of large mammals by Apennine bears consistently between sexes, with highest values in spring followed by early summer but null in the other seasons. We also confirmed that consumption of fleshy fruits peaked in late summer, when wild predominated over cultivated fleshy fruits, even though the latter tended to be consumed in higher proportion in autumn. Male bears had higher δ 15N values than females in spring and autumn. Our findings also hint at additional differences in the assimilated diet between sexes, with females likely consuming more herbs during spring, ants during early summer, and hard mast during fall compared to males. In addition, although effect sizes were small and credibility intervals overlapped considerably, management bears on average were 0.9‰ lower in δ 13C and 2.9‰ higher in δ 15N compared to non-management bears, with differences in isotopic values between the two bear categories peaking in autumn. While non-management bears consumed more herbs, wild fleshy fruits, and hard mast, management bears tended to consume higher proportions of cultivated fruits, ants, and large mammals, possibly including livestock. Although multi-year sampling and larger sample sizes are needed to support our findings, our application confirms that SIA can effectively integrate previous knowledge and be efficiently conducted using samples non-invasively collected during population surveys.

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Spatial variation in the feeding strategies of Mediterranean fish: flatfish and mullet in the Gulf of Gaeta (Italy)

Cited by 11 publications

References 81 publications

Trophic niches and diet shifts of juvenile mullet species coexisting in marine and estuarine habitats

Trophic niches and diet shifts of juvenile mullet species coexisting in marine and estuarine habitats

Changing Isotopic Food Webs of Two Economically Important Fish in Mediterranean Coastal Lakes with Different Trophic Status

Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis

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