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Feeding habits of the white-spotted boxfish Ostracion meleagris reveal a strong preference for colonial ascidians

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Abstract

Boxfishes (Ostraciidae) are known to be benthivores and mainly consume sessile organisms on reefs, such as tunicates. Ascidian tunicates contain various toxins and seldom suffer from predation by reef fishes, except for boxfishes. However, the importance of ascidian tunicates has not been sufficiently examined in the feeding ecology of boxfishes. We conducted field surveys to investigate the feeding habits of the white-spotted boxfish Ostracion meleagris on the reefs of southern Japan. Photosymbiotic ascidians predominantly contributed to the boxfish diet, and observed colonies of ascidians were bitten frequently by the boxfish during the survey. During the day, the feeding boxfish moved within their home ranges in a rocky, shallow zone of the studied reefs, which harbored photosymbiotic ascidian colonies of the family Didemnidae at higher densities than in the surrounding zones, including the spawning sites that were located hundreds of meters offshore. Boxfish home ranges overlapped considerably, but intraspecific agonistic interactions rarely occurred among the females, likely due to the abundance of ascidian colonies. No other types of fish were observed to make attempts to feed on the ascidian colonies on the reef throughout the study period, except for a congener Ostracion cubicus. These results suggest that the boxfish strongly rely on the photosymbiotic ascidians as a less-competitive food resource, and the limited distribution pattern of photosymbiotic ascidians in shallow water near shore can be an important factor in promoting a spawning migration in the boxfish.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the people of Kuchierabu-jima Island for allowing us to perform the field survey. We also thank Dr. T. Tomiyama, Dr. J. Shibata and the other colleagues at the Laboratory of Biology of Aquatic Resources, Hiroshima University for their support in this study. We also thank Dr. Y. Hirose and Dr. M. Hirose for providing helpful advice on ascidian identification. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for providing constructive comments. We would like to thank Editage (https://www.editage.com) for English language editing. All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the Guidelines for the Proper Conduct of Animal Experiments outlined by the Hiroshima University Animal Research Committee (No. 020A170410 certificated on April 10th, 2017), the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and the Animal Behavior Society Guidelines for the Use of Animal in Research (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.11.002), the Guidelines for the Use of Fishes in Research by the Ichthyological Society of Japan (http://www.fishisj.jp/english/guidelines.html), and the Guideline for Ethological Studies by the Japan Ethological Society (http://www.ethology.jp/guideline.pdf). This study was funded by Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from the Japan Science Society and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18K06419. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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  1. Yoichi Sakai

    Present address: Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life, Hiroshima University, Kagamiyama 1-4-4, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8528, Japan

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  1. Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, Kagamiyama 1-4-4, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8528, Japan

    Yuki Koide & Yoichi Sakai

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  1. Yuki Koide
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Correspondence to Yuki Koide.

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Koide, Y., Sakai, Y. Feeding habits of the white-spotted boxfish Ostracion meleagris reveal a strong preference for colonial ascidians. Ichthyol Res 68, 461–470 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-021-00800-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-021-00800-x

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