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Refugees or ravenous predators: detecting predation on new recruits to tropical estuarine nurseries

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Abstract

Many of the most abundant small and juvenile fishes within shallow water estuarine nursery habitats consume other fish to some degree but have rarely been considered as potentially important predators in the functioning of these systems because of the low (<50%) average occurrence of fish in their diets. Predation by abundant minor piscivores on new recruits when they first enter the nursery may make a significant contribution to the predation mortality of this critical life-history stage. To determine the potential importance of minor piscivores as predators on new recruits, temporal patterns in the diets of 15 common species of minor piscivores were examined and related to the abundance of new recruits (≤20 mm FL) in biweekly seine samples over 13 months in shallow (<1.5 m) sandy habitats in the Ross River estuary in north-eastern Queensland, Australia. The high spatial patchiness of new recruits made it difficult to correlate their abundance with their consumption by minor piscivores, and there was no relationship detected between the abundance of new recruits and the occurrence of fish in the diets of minor piscivores. To gain broader insight into spatio-temporal patterns in the consumption of fish prey by minor piscivores, we utilised a collection of fishes sampled during various studies over 6 years from 17 estuaries in the region to examine the diets of >3500 individuals from 20 spp. of minor piscivores. Patterns in the consumption of fish prey by these minor piscivores, especially the highly abundant sparids, sillaginids and ambassids, revealed that the low average occurrence of fish in their diet greatly underestimated the predation pressure imposed by these on fish prey at particular locations and times. For most sampling occasions and locations few minor piscivores consumed fish prey (consumed by 0% of individuals examined), while occasionally a large proportion of individuals within a taxon did so (50–100% of individuals consumed fish prey). Often at such times/locations multiple species of minor piscivores simultaneously preyed heavily on fish. When minor piscivores consumed fish, they preyed mainly on small new recruits. Because many of these minor piscivores are relatively recent recruits, many of the small and juvenile fishes believed to gain refuge in shallow estuarine nurseries may themselves be important predators on fish subsequently recruiting to these habitats, and so potentially play a significant role in structuring estuarine fish faunas and the functioning of shallow water nurseries.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jane Wilson for her contribution of dietary data, and JW and Keith van den Broek for assistance in the field. The comments of reviewers greatly improved this manuscript, as did the comments and advice of two reviewers of the thesis chapter on which this manuscript is based (R. Rountree and one anonymous). This study was funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management (Coastal CRC) and the School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University. Field sampling was conducted under Queensland General Fisheries Permit PRM03681A, and JCU Ethics approval A621_00.

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  1. Estuarine and Coastal Ecology Group, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, 4811, Australia

    Ron Baker & Marcus Sheaves

  2. SEFSC Galveston Lab, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, 4700 Ave U, Galveston, TX, 77551, USA

    Ron Baker

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Correspondence to Ron Baker.

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Baker, R., Sheaves, M. Refugees or ravenous predators: detecting predation on new recruits to tropical estuarine nurseries. Wetlands Ecol Manage 17, 317–330 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-008-9109-3

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