Abstract
The day–night change in fish community structure over a year was examined in a seagrass bed in Lake Notoro, Hokkaido, northern Japan, to examine nocturnal increases in predation risk. This seagrass bed has previously been considered a predation refuge for juvenile and small-sized fishes. Species richness, abundance and biomass of piscivorous fishes during nighttime were higher than those during daytime on all sample dates surveyed (May, August and November 2013), indicating an increase in predation risk for juvenile and small-sized fishes during nighttime. The mean biomass-weighted trophic level of fish communities in the seagrass bed was also higher at night than in the day. The piscivorous fishes collected in the seagrass bed during the night included important fishery species. These may obtain energy through nocturnal feeding in the seagrass bed. Therefore, the function of seagrass beds as fish habitats should be re-evaluated by considering two possible characteristics contributing to fishery production: as a daytime predation refuge for juvenile and small-sized fishes, and as a nighttime foraging ground for piscivorous fishes.
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Acknowledgments
We express our thanks to H. Nakano, Y. Ogino, T. Kuwahara, M. Hata Y. and the Nishi-abashiri Fisherman’s Association for their support in the field sampling, and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. This study was partly supported by the Global Environment Research Fund (RF-1102) of the Ministry of the Environment (to J. S).
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This article is sponsored by the Coastal Ecosystem Complex Project of the Ocean Resource Use Promotion Technology Development Program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
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Tanaka, H., Chiba, S., Yusa, T. et al. Day–night change in fish community structure in a seagrass bed in subarctic waters. Fish Sci 84, 275–281 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-017-1172-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-017-1172-3