Aquatic Ecology

, 42:83 | Cite as

Whitemouth croaker Micropogonias furnieri (Desmarest, 1823) feeding strategies across four southern Brazilian estuaries

Original Paper
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Abstract

We test the hypothesis that predatory benthic fishes play a similar ecological role in different estuaries by displaying the same feeding strategy. We used whitemouth croaker (Micropogonias furnieri) populations in four southern Brazilian estuaries (Mampituba (29°12′ S), Tramandaí (30°02′ S), Patos Lagoon (32°10′ S) and Chuí (33°44′ S)) as a model. We compared feeding strategies based on a graphical method proposed by Amundsen et al. [(1996) J Fish Biol. 48:607–614], with confidence intervals of frequency of occurrence of prey (FO) and prey-specific abundance (PSA) estimated by bootstrap analyses. We test differences among diets in the four estuaries used the ANOSIM and SIMPER analyses. We minimize the effect of fish size on prey selectivity by restricting the diet analysis to 70–130 mm size classes. Across all estuaries, infaunal prey was the dominant item in the whitemouth croaker’s diet. Most individuals fed on dominant infaunal prey such as Polychaetes (Chuí: FO = 0.55 ± 0.018 SD; PSA = 0.88 ± 0.016 and Mampituba: FO = 0.73 ± 0.037; PSA = 0.56 ± 0.056), Bivalves (Tramandaí: FO = 0.58 ± 0.032; PSA = 0.92 ± 0.024) and Tanaidaceans (Patos Lagoon: FO = 0.63 ± 0.027; PSA = 0.62 ± 0.043). A between-phenotype contribution to the niche width was observed in all four estuaries, where individuals generally consumed relatively large amounts of different prey types in the same habitat and season. Whitemouth croaker have a zoobenthivore feeding strategy and seemed to maintain the same feeding strategy in all the four estuaries. Specialization on consuming infaunal prey displayed by juveniles of whitemouth croaker could be an important factor leading to the successful colonization of South American estuaries.

Keywords

Estuarine fish Diet Infauna Trophic plasticity 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

We thank Alexandre Garcia for reviewing an early draft, Ângela Milach, Ricardo Marcelo Geraldi and Marcelo Raseira for field and laboratory assistance. The first author received a doctoral fellowship from Banco de México and Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—CAPES (Brazil). We thank David Hoeinghaus for English revision. We are also grateful to three anonymous referees who contributed valuable comments.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, B.V. 2007

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.El Colegio de la Frontera Sur – ECOSUR, Departamento de Pesquerías ArtesanalesVillahermosaMexico
  2. 2.Laboratório de Ictiologia, Depto. de OceanografiaFundação Universidade do Rio GrandeRio GrandeBrasil

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