Abstract
In our study conducted in Shijiki Bay, Japan, in 1983 nocturnal barface cardinalfish (Apogon semilineatus) fed almost exclusively on mature males of the infaunal tube-dwelling gammarid Byblis japonicus. This predation pattern cannot be explained in terms of the sex composition of B. japonicus in the sediment, because mature males were the least abundant members of the population. Rather, this phenomenon may be explained by two alternative factors: diel vertical migration and size of prey. At night many gammarids, including B. japonicus, move up to the near-bottom water, and consequently become available to A. semilineatus, an epibenthos and/ or plankton feeder. Among these gammarids, juvenile B. japonicus and other gammarid species were more abundant than mature males, but were too small for A. semilincatus to prey on. Since mature B. japonicus males were the most abundant form of epibenthic and/or planktonic, large bodied prey present, the diet of A. semilineatus was limited almost entirely to these mature males. The sex ratio difference between B. japonicus individuals in the sediment and those in the near-bottom water indicated that vertical migration in this species has two functions: to assure the dispersal of juveniles and to allow mating contact for mature males.
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Communicated by T. Ikeda, Niigata
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Sudo, H., Azeta, M. Selective predation on mature male Byblis japonicus (amphipoda: Gammaridea) by the barface cardinalfish, Apogon semilineatus . Marine Biology 114, 211–217 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349521
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349521