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Decreased trophic position as a function of increasing body size of a benthic omnivorous fish from the largest freshwater lake in China

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An Erratum to this article was published on 23 July 2011

Abstract

Potential body size-trophic position relationships of the Darkbarbel catfish Pelteobagrus vachelli (Richardson 1846) were examined using stable isotope analysis. Pelteobagrus vachelli is a benthic feeding fish from Lake Poyang, the largest freshwater lake in China. Two-source mixing model with mussel (Corbicula fluminea) and snail (Bellamya aeruginosa) as baseline primary consumers of planktonic and benthic food webs, respectively, was used to estimate contribution of carbon derived from planktonic vs. benthic food web. Results showed that as an indicator of trophic position, δ15N was negatively correlated with the body length and weight of the fish; on the other hand, as an indicator of the end-member food sources, δ13C was not correlated with fish size. The mixing model results showed that the averaged trophic position of our sampled 3.3–12.7 cm Pelteobagrus vachelli was 3.1 ± 0.2 and derived 68 ± 27% of their food from the benthic food web, confirming that the feeding behavior of the catfish favors benthic food sources.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Yuwei Chen, Lu Zhang and the staff of Lake Poyang Laboratory for Wetland Ecosystem Research, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for their help in field work and data collection in Lake Poyang. Input from anonymous reviewers also helped improve this manuscript substantially. This study was supported by the 973 Plan (Grant No. 2009CB421106), the National Science and Technology Support Plan (Grant No. 2006BAC08B05), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30870428). Funding was also awarded to JX by the K. C. Wong Education Foundation and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Yuyu Wang & Xiubo Yu

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yuyu Wang

  3. Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology of China, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Jun Xu

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  1. Yuyu Wang
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  2. Xiubo Yu
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  3. Jun Xu
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Correspondence to Xiubo Yu.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9883-2

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Wang, Y., Yu, X. & Xu, J. Decreased trophic position as a function of increasing body size of a benthic omnivorous fish from the largest freshwater lake in China. Environ Biol Fish 91, 505–512 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9808-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9808-0

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