Abstract
Little information is available regarding fish diets in Antarctica and how they relate to prey availability. The primary objective of this work was to describe the diet of Trematomus bernacchii. The second objective was to compare prey taken with prey present in the benthos along a spatial gradient of prey abundance using Ivlev's Index of Electivity. All samples were collected from 4 different sites on the east side of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Fish were captured by divers at the same depth at each site and their stomachs were flushed for dietary analysis. The diet of T. bernacchii varied among sites, and prey selectivity varied inversely with prey abundance. Many of the prey taken by T. bernacchii were sedentary species suggesting that T. bernacchii is a hunt and peck predator.
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Kiest, K.A. A relationship of diet to prey abundance and the foraging behavior of Trematomus bernacchii . Polar Biol 13, 291–296 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238355
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238355