Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:22:09.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feeding habits of the toothed flounder Cyclopsetta querna (Paralichthyidae) of the south-east Gulf of California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2010

Felipe Amezcua ,
Alfonso Portillo  and
Felipe Amezcua-Linares
Felipe Amezcua*
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Joel Montes Camarena s/n, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, 82040, México
Alfonso Portillo
Affiliation:
Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Paseo Claussen S/N. Mazatlan, Sinaloa, 82000, México
Felipe Amezcua-Linares
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, Ciudad Universitaria, México D.F. 04510, Mexico
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: F. Amezcua, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Joel Montes Camarena s/n, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, 82040, México email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Feeding habits of the toothed flounder Cyclopsetta querna caught in the south-east Gulf of California were studied. Specimens were collected via demersal fish surveys. Results of this study show that C. querna is a predator that focuses on fish inhabiting the bottom and in particular on tonguefish (Symphurus sp.), midshipman fish (Porichthys sp.) and moray eels (Muraenidae). The diet of the toothed flounder did not vary significantly throughout the period of study, and neither size nor sex-related variations in diet composition were observed. Simpson's index indicates a limited trophic niche breadth with a diet dominated by a limited number of taxa. The estimated TROPH value for C. querna is similar to that estimated for other demersal top predators from the studied area; therefore, the toothed flounder can be considered a top carnivore from the demersal community in the Gulf of California.

Keywords

Cyclopsetta quernafeeding habitstrophic nichemultivariate analysestrophic levelGulf of California
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 91 , Special Issue 6: Fish Ecology , September 2011 , pp. 1225 - 1230
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amezcua, F., Martínez-Tovar, I., Green-Ruiz, Y. and Amezcua-Linares, F. (2006) Use of otoliths to determine age and growth of a tropical flatfish Cyclopsetta querna (Paralichthyidae) from the southeast coast of the Gulf of California, Mexico. Ichthyological Research 53, 70–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amezcua-Linares, F. (2009) Peces Demersales del Pacífico de México. México: Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, UNAM.Google Scholar
Beverton, R. (1998) Fish, fact and fantasy: a long view. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8, 229–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, K.R. and Warwick, R.M. (1994) Change in marine communities: an approach to statistical analysis and interpretation. Plymouth: PRIMER.Google Scholar
Coronado-Molina, C. and Amezcua-Linares, F. (1988) Demersal fishes from the coast of Guerrero, Eastern Pacific: distribution and abundance [In Spanish with an English summary.]. Anales del Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología 15, 67–94.Google Scholar
Cortés, E. (1999) Standardized diet compositions and trophic levels of sharks. ICES Journal of Marine Science 56, 707–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De La Mare, W.K. (1998) Tidier fisheries management requires a new MOP (management-oriented paradigm). Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8, 349–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Efron, B. and Tibshirani, R. (1993) An introduction to the Bootstrap. New York: Chapman & Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferry, L.A. and Caillet, G.M. (1996) Sample size and data analysis: are we characterizing and comparing diet properly? In MacKinlay, D. and Shearer, K. (eds) Proceedings of the Symposium on the Feeding Ecology and Nutrition in Fish, 14–18 July 1996. San Francisco: American Fisheries Society, pp. 71–80.Google Scholar
Fischer, W., Krupp, F., Schneider, W., Sommer, C., Carpenter, K.E. and Niem, V.H. (1995) FAO Species Catalogue for the Identification of Species for Fishing Goals. Mid West Pacific. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
Froese, R. and Pauly, D. (2009) FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version (05/2009).Google Scholar
Golani, D. and Galil, B. (1991) Trophic relationships of colonizing and indigenous goatfishes (Mullidae) in the eastern Mediterranean with special emphasis on decapod crustaceans. Hydrobiologia 218, 27–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haddon, M. (2001) Modeling and quantitative methods in fisheries. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Harmelin-Vivien, M.L., Kaim-Malka, R.A., Ledoyer, M. and Jacob-Abraham, S.S. (1989) Food partitioning among scorpaenid fishes in Mediterranean seagrass beds. Journal of Fish Biology 34, 715–734.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, R.N. (1997) Diet selection. In Godin, J.G.J (ed.) Behavioural ecology of teleost fishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 134–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyslop, E.J. (1980) Stomach contents analysis—a review of methods and their application. Journal of Fish Biology 17, 411–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, S. and Kaiser, M.J. (1998) The effects of fishing on marine ecosystems. Advances in Marine Biology 34, 201–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, S., Kaiser, M.J. and Reynolds, J.D. (2001) Marine fisheries ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Science.Google Scholar
Labropoulou, M. and Machias, A. (1998) Effect of habitat selection on the dietary patterns of two triglid species. Marine Ecology Progress Series 173, 275–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labropoulou, M., Machias, A., Tsimenides, N. and Eleftheriou, A. (1997) Feeding habits and ontogenetic shift of the striped red mullet, Mullus surmuletus Linnaeus, 1758. Fisheries Research 31, 257–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labropoulou, M., Machias, A. and Tsimenides, N. (1999) Habitat selection and diet of juvenile red porgy, Pagrus pagrus (Linnaeus, 1758). Fishery Bulletin 97, 495–507.Google Scholar
Madrid-Vera, J., Amezcua, F. and Morales-Bojorquez, E. (2007) An assessment approach to estimate biomass of fish communities from bycatch data in a tropical shrimp-trawl fishery. Fisheries Research 83, 81–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magurran, A.E. (2004) Measuring biological diversity. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Marshall, S. and Elliot, M. (1997) A comparison of univariate and multivariate numerical and graphical techniques for determining inter- and intraspecific feeding relationships in estuarine fish. Journal of Fish Biology 51, 526–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauly, D. (2000) Predatorprey ratios in fishes. In Froese, R. and Pauly, D. (eds) FishBase 2000: concepts, design and data sources. Manila: ICLARM, p. 201.Google Scholar
Pauly, D. and Christensen, V. (2000) Trophic levels of fishes. In Froese, R. and Pauly, D. (eds) FishBase 2000: concepts, design and data sources. Manila: ICLARM, p. 181.Google Scholar
Pauly, D. and Sala, P. (2000) Estimating trophic levels from individual food items. In Froese, R. and Pauly, D. (eds) FishBase 2000: concepts, design and data sources. Manila: ICLARM, p. 185.Google Scholar
Pauly, D., Froese, R., Sala, P.S., Palomares, M.L., Christensen, V. and Rius, J. (2000) TrophLab Manual. Manila: ICLARM.Google Scholar
Perez-España, H., Saucedo-Lozano, M. and Raymundo-Huizar, A.R. (2005) Trophic ecology of demersal fishes from the Pacific shelf off central Mexico. Bulletin of Marine Science 77, 19–31.Google Scholar
Reichert, M.J.M. (2003) Diet, consumption, and growth of juvenile fringed flounder (Etropus crossotus); a test of the ‘maximum growth/optimum food hypothesis’ in a subtropical nursery area. Journal of Sea Research 50, 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichert, M.J.M., Dean, J.M., Feller, R.J. and Grego, J.M. (2000) Somatic growth and otolith growth in juveniles of a small subtropical flatfish, the fringed flounder Etropus crossotus. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 254, 169–188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robertson, D.R. and Allen, G.R. (2006) Shorefishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific: an information system. Balboa: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.Google Scholar
Scharf, F.S., Juanes, F. and Rountree, R.A. (2000) Predator size–prey size relationships of marine fish predators: interspecific variation and effects of ontogeny and body size on trophic niche breadth. Marine Ecology Progress Series 208, 229–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, T.D. (1998) Simultaneous and complementary advances: mid-century expectations of the interaction of fisheries science and management. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8, 335–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stergiou, K.I. (2002) Overfishing, tropicalization of fish stocks, uncertainty and ecosystem management: resharpening Ockham's razor. Fisheries Research 55, 1–9.Google Scholar
Stergiou, K.I. and Fourtouni, H. (1991) Food habits, ontogenetic diet shift and selectivity in Zeus faber Linnaeus, 1758. Journal of Fish Biology 39, 589–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, T.K., Butterworth, D.S., Stephenson, R.L. and Payne, A.I.L. (1999) Confronting uncertainty in the evaluation and implementation of fisheries-management systems. ICES Journal of Marine Science 56, 795–796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tapia-Garcia, M., Garcia-Abad, M.C., Gonzalez-Medina, G., Macuitl, M.C., De Guevara, M. and De Guevara, G.C.L. (1994) Composition, distribution and abundance of the demersal fish community in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico. Tropical Ecology 35, 229–252.Google Scholar
Wootton, R.J. (1990) Ecology of teleost fish. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar