Diet and trophic organization of the fish assemblage from the Mamanguape River Estuary, Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The present work aims to characterize a fish assemblage from a northeastern Brazilian estuary according to its diet and trophic organization along the estuarine-reef gradient. Sampling was performed at the Mamanguape Estuary, and fishes were collected using three types of nets at seventeen sites, grouped into four regions according to salinity range: reefs and the lower, middle, and upper estuary. The most abundant species were Atherinella brasiliensis, Mugil curema, and Sphoeroides testudineus. The highest species abundance and richness was observed for the lower estuary. Zooplankton was the most consumed category, recorded for fortytwo species. Among the guilds, piscivores were the most abundant, followed by crab eaters. Herbivores, mostly represented by Abudefduf saxatilis, had a higher abundance in reefs, being correlated according to ANOSIM analysis to this region, while piscivores and crab eaters showed a high contribution to inner regions of the Mamanguape Estuary.

Trophic ecology of the juveniles of two jack species (Caranx latus and C. hippos) in contrasted tropical estuaries

“…Indeed, Caranx latus and C. hippos not only have similar shapes and growth trajectories (Viana et al, 2016), but also reproduce on deep reefs along the shelf (Heyman and Kjerfve, 2008), and mostly colonize estuaries as juveniles, before moving to deeper waters when adults (Smith-Vaniz, 2002). In the estuaries, their juveniles have been similarly reported to feed on a broad diversity of fish and crustaceans (Vasconcelos J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 14 Medeiros et al, 2017), including key species in estuarine food webs (Ferreira, 2018;Lira et al, 2018). The present study however showed that, although gobies and decapod shrimps are the main food items ingested by both species, C. latus juveniles have a more piscivorous diet than those of C. hippos.…”

“…The present study however showed that, although gobies and decapod shrimps are the main food items ingested by both species, C. latus juveniles have a more piscivorous diet than those of C. hippos. These benthic prey represent a substantial part of the diet of juvenile jack species in general (Blaber and Cyrus, 1983;Smith and Parrish, 2002;Figueiredo and Pessanha, 2015;Medeiros et al, 2017) and are commonly eaten by other estuarine fish (Blaber, 1986;Vasconcelos Filho et al, 2003;Lira et al, 2017). The juveniles of the two species were also found to largely prey on pelagic fish like engraulids and clupeids in the three estuaries studied, as already reported from visual census studies in these ecosystems (Cermak, 2002).…”

“…Within estuarine systems, the types and abundances of the prey available for foraging fish strongly vary according to habitat type (Svanbäck and Eklöv, 2002;Lecomte and Dodson, 2005;Cardozo et al, 2020), which partly contributes to diet changes in the predators exhibiting seasonal or size-related shifts in habitat use (Stevens et al, 2007;Ferreira et al, 2016;. However, juvenile jacks are highly mobile within estuaries, using a wide diversity of estuarine habitats irrespective of their age (Medeiros et al, 2017). Moreover, the sampling design in this study attempted to capture most of the spatial and temporal variation in habitat use by the two species, by capturing juvenile jacks in all their main estuarine habitats (e.g.…”

“…The yearlings of the two species are found in a broad range of inshore and coastal habitats along the Brazilian coast (Figueiredo and Menezes, 1980;Paiva and Araújo, 2010), and information regarding their trophic ecology in estuaries is particularly scarce (e.g. Vasconcelos Filho et al, 2010;Medeiros et al, 2017).…”

Sagitta otolith of three demersal species in a tropical environment

“…Polydactylus virginicus (Linnaeus, 1758), Menticirrhus cuiaranensis (Marceniuk et al, 2020) and Conodon nobilis (Linnaeus, 1758) are examples of species exploited by recreational fishers (Freire et al, 2017) and are usually described as food items in the diet of ichthyophagous species (Tavares & Di Beneditto, 2017). Those species are demersal and distributed in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean (Menezes & Figueiredo, 1980;Froese & Pauly, 2021 Menticirrhus cuiaranensis and C. nobilis are benthophagous (Lira et al, 2019) whereas P. virginicus is zooplanktivore (Medeiros et al, 2017).…”