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Marine macroalgae as foods for fishes: an evaluation of potential food quality

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A revitalized view of feeding by herbivorous marine fishes is sought through two questions. First, What characteristics of major taxa of algae identify them as predictably high or low quality foods? Second, are marine algae valuable foods for fishes which do not mechanically disrupt cell walls and do not harbor specialized enzymes or microbes capable of lysing cell walls? Energy, ash and nutrient content of 16 species of marine algae were employed to assess food quality of fleshy red, green, brown and calcareous red algae. On the basis of ash, calories, total protein and total lipid content, fleshy algae should be superior to calcareous algae as foods for fishes; in addition, green algae should be superior to brown algae and brown algae superior to red algae. When the probable digestibility of storage and extracellular carbohydrates is considered, green and red algae are predicted superior to brown algae as food. Two species of damselfishes (Pomacentridae) from the Gulf of California,Eupomacentrus rectifraenum andMicrospathodon dorsalis, eat red and green algae and ignore brown and calcareous algae. They feed, therefore, in a fashion consistent with predictions based only on algal chemistry. These fishes absorb at least 20–24% of the biomass, 57–67% of the protein, 46–56% of the lipid and 37–44% of the carbohydrate contained in algae eaten in the wild. Since these damselfishes do not masticate their food, it appears that herbivorous fishes can digest major fractions of algal nutrients without mechanical destruction of algal cells.

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  1. W. Linn Montgomery

    Present address: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02543, USA

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  1. Department of Zoology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85281, USA

    W. Linn Montgomery & Shelby D. Gerking

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  2. Shelby D. Gerking
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Montgomery, W.L., Gerking, S.D. Marine macroalgae as foods for fishes: an evaluation of potential food quality. Environ Biol Fish 5, 143–153 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02391621

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