Food limitation in epibenthic species in temperate intertidal systems in summer: analysis of 0-group plaice Pleuronectes platessa

Abstract

The Balgzand intertidal is an important nursery area for early life stages of various epibenthic crustacean and fish species. Especially in summer, extremely high numbers of individuals occur. This study analyses whether these high densities in summer lead to food limitation using 0-group plaice Pleuronectes platessa L. as a model species. Between 1975 and, this species was quantitatively monitored during 20 yr. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) a statistical analysis of field growth in relation to density, whereby negative density-dependent growth is considered as an indication of intraspecific competition, and (2) a comparison of observed field growth with predicted maximum growth according to the dynamic energy budget (DEB) model, to detect whether growth reduction occurs during the growing season as an indication of interspecies competition. The statistical analysis indicated no negative density-dependent growth during the whole growing season, suggesting the absence of intraspecies competition for food. The comparison of observed growth with DEB-predicted maximum growth showed that field growth was lower than the possible maximum, and that the difference increased over time until about the end of July, suggesting interspecies competition for food in summer. The stabilization in growth rate from July onwards might be related to a change in food quality: a shift from small bivalve siphons as main food items to larger tail tips of the lugworm Arenicola marina. These findings illustrate that not only food quantity but also food quality affects growth rates, at least in 0-group plaice.KEY WORDS: Plaice · Pleuronectes platessa · Wadden Sea · Growth · Dynamic energy budget · Intertidal · Food quantity · Food quality · Food limitation Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 416: [215][216][217][218][219][220][221][222][223][224][225][226][227] 2010 P. microps, and the juvenile flatfishes Pleuronectes platessa, Platichthys flesus, Limanda limanda and Solea solea (Zijlstra 1972, Jensen & Jensen 1985, Pihl 1985, Ansell et al. 1999, Amara 2003, Amara & Paul 2003, Freitas et al. 2010a.For those species, shallow coastal areas are typically important habitats as nursery grounds for early life stages due to presumed favourable conditions for growth and survival (Zijlstra 1972, Bergman et al. 1988. In general, juveniles arrive and settle in the intertidal with rising temperatures in spring and disappear with decreasing temperatures at the end of the growing season, emigrating to deeper waters. As a result, high densities (10s to 1000s of ind. m -2 ) of epibenthic consumers build up in these shallow areas in the course of the season. Since the various species have overlapping food spectra, these high numbers, and hence high biomass, have raised questions about their growth conditions, suggesting that food might be limited by either intra-and/or interspecies competition (Pihl 1985). For most species, growth is difficult to monitor due to more or less co...

Shifts in nursery habitat utilization by 0-group plaice in the western Dutch Wadden Sea

“…Furthermore, there is no strong support for size-selective predation by fishes and birds on 0-group plaice in summer (van der Veer et al, 1997). The results of this study are also in line with previous observations for the Balgzand intertidal (Teal et al, 2008;van der Veer et al, 2010), as well as for a number of European nurseries (Ciotti et al, 2010;Freitas et al, 2012;Ciotti et al, 2013a,b). This again suggests that variations in food conditions and hence growth potential cannot explain the shifts in habitat use between 1986 and 2009.…”

“…Studies in the western Dutch Wadden Sea helped to elucidate patterns of habitat use by juvenile plaice (Zijlstra, 1972;Kuipers, 1973Kuipers, , 1975Kuipers, , 1977de Vlas, 1979) and to evaluate plaice population dynamics in relation to variation in habitat quality (van der Veer et al, 1990;Karikiri et al, 1991;van der Veer & Witte 1993;van der Veer et al, 2010). It was established that plaice settlement is mainly restricted to tidal flat areas (Zijlstra et al, 1982;van der Veer & Bergman, 1986) and that 0-group plaice remain in this primary nursery habitat until autumn, before moving to deeper waters offshore as suggested by increasing densities in coastal waters (> 3 m depth) (Zijlstra et al, 1982;van der Veer et al, 1990).…”

Latitudinal trends in habitat quality of shallow‑water flatfish nurseries

“…In plaice Pleuronectes platessa, such a trend was observed over a large latitudinal range from northern Norway estuarine waters (Freitas et al 2010a), to the Irish Sea (Nash et al 1994), and at Balgzand, in the Dutch Wadden Sea (Teal et al 2008). Although this discrepancy suggested food limitation, an experimental bias could not be excluded since, in summer, fish size had outgrown the range where the maximum growth model could be applied (Van der Veer et al 2010).…”

“…food availability and temperature) affecting metabolism (Kooijman 2000). This modelling approach was applied to re-investigate 0-group plaice growth conditions in the Balgzand intertidal area (Van der Veer et al 2010) and previous conclusions have been refined. Evidence from several years suggested a reduced habitat quality for plaice in summer, proposing competition with (or interference by) gobiidae and epibenthic crustaceans as the most likely underlying mechanism (Van der Veer et al 2010).…”

“…This study builds on the ap proach followed in Van der Veer et al (2010) to study plaice growth conditions using bioenergetics modelling and expands the scope to 2 other flatfish species, sole Solea solea and flounder Platichthys flesus. These two species are also important components of de mer sal flatfish communities, overlapping with plaice in the use of coastal nursery grounds from Bay of Biscay to Western Scotland , Quéro et al 1986).…”