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Fish feeding groups, food selectivity, and diet shifts associated with environmental factors and prey availability along a large subtropical river, China

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Abstract

Understanding spatial variation in fish trophic structures along large river systems remains a challenge, and the influence of fish food selectivity and diet shifts on these structures remains unknown. In this study, the assemblage composition and stomach contents of fish in the subtropical East River of southern China were analyzed to determine their diet composition (DC) and identify prey-oriented feeding groups. Ten prey items were identified and used to cluster 106 fish species into 23 feeding groups. The number of groups increased longitudinally due to the accumulated emergence of site-specific prey sources in fish DC, although this number decreased sharply near the estuary due to the loss of insectivorous fish. The fish assemblages showed a longitudinal decrease in abundance and an increase in biomass, with higher values observed in the rainy season than the dry season. A downstream decrease in insectivores and epiphytivores and increase in detritivores and molluscivores represented the basic patterns observed along the river. Seven widespread fish species exhibited spatial dietary shifts, among which three generalist feeders with a high abundance notably influenced the fish trophic structures, and four specialist feeders with high food selectivity were significantly (P < 0.05) correlated with prey availability. Multivariate data analysis showed that the flow velocity, water depth, riffle areas, and nutrient concentrations were the key environmental factors that determined the distribution of fish feeding groups, while hydrophytes, plant debris, Ephemeroptera and Odonata insects, and Atyidae shrimp were the key prey sources.

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Data Availability

Methods for collecting and analyzing the water, plankton, and epiphyte samples (Method S1). Taxonomic classification of ten fish prey items in the East River (Table S1). Composition of fish species, feeding groups, and stomach contents at the six sampling sites along the East River (Table S2). Linear regressions between the distribution of fish specialist feeders and the biomass of prey sources (Fig. S1). CCA results between the biomass distribution of fish feeding groups and the key prey sources (Fig. S2A) and the environmental factors (Fig. S2B).

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Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. U1501235 and U1405234) and Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China (no. 201704020158). We thank Nora F. Y. Tam for fruitful discussions and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism.

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Author notes

  1. Sai Wang and Jin-Peng Tang contributed equally to this work and should be regarded as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center of Hydrobiology, Department of Ecology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Sai Wang, Jin-Peng Tang, Lin-Hui Su, Jing-Jing Fan, Tuan-Tuan Wang, Lin Wang & Yang Yang

  2. Research Center of Tropical and Subtropical Aquatic Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Sai Wang & Yang Yang

  3. Department of Life Sciences and Innovation and Development Center of Sustainable Agriculture, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 402, Taiwan

    Hao-Yen Chang & Hsing-Juh Lin

  4. State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Tuan-Tuan Wang

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Contributions

SW, JPT, TTW, LW, JJF, and HYC initiated the study and carried out the fieldwork and species determination. SW, JPT, and LHS carried out the statistical analysis, prepared the diagrams, and wrote the manuscript. YY and HJL revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yang Yang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests. The study did not involve work with humans. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree to its submission.

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Wang, S., Tang, JP., Su, LH. et al. Fish feeding groups, food selectivity, and diet shifts associated with environmental factors and prey availability along a large subtropical river, China. Aquat Sci 81, 31 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-019-0628-1

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