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Feeding ecology of dominant groundfish in the northern Bering Sea

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Abstract

We investigated current diets of the six most abundant benthic fish in the northern Bering Sea. Our objective was to explore feeding strategies and potential competition with other top predators as ecosystem changes occur in the northern Bering Sea ecosystem. Our approach used stomach content data collected from field sampling during spring 2006 and 2007. Calanoid copepods and ampeliscid amphipods were important prey of Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) but in different proportions depending upon fish size, feeding location, and local environmental conditions. Snailfish (Liparidae) occupied a broad niche and fed on a variety of benthic amphipods. Arctic alligatorfish (Ulcina olrikii) and Arctic staghorn sculpin (Gymnocanthus tricuspis) consumed ampeliscid amphipods predominantly. Shorthorn sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius) had a less-diverse diet, with snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) most important by weight. Finally, all Bering flounder (Hippoglossoides robustus) sampled had empty stomachs. Our results indicate that ampeliscid amphipods, which have high biomass in the central region of the northern Bering Sea, are the most important prey for the dominant groundfish in the Chirikov Basin. Generally, all dominant benthic fish in the northern Bering Sea had narrow feeding niches, except snailfish. High diet overlap was found among many of the fish species, including Arctic cod and snailfish, snailfish and Arctic alligatorfish, and Arctic alligatorfish and Arctic staghorn sculpin. These findings are consistent with a relatively short food chain for benthic fish that are for the most part specialized feeders with narrow preferences for food and may be affected by changes in benthic prey distributions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. R. Brown for lending her taxonomic expertise in the identification of fish prey. We thank the crew, officers, and particularly the marine science technicians from the USCGC Healy for sampling support at sea. We thank the chief editor and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that helped us to improve a prior version of the manuscript. Support for this research was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation through OPP-ARC-0454454. The State of Tennessee also provided fellowship support to X. Cui through the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, 569 Dabney Hall, 1416 Circle Dr., Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Xuehua Cui

  2. Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, 1 Williams Street, PO Box 38, Solomons, MD, 20688, USA

    Jacqueline M. Grebmeier & Lee W. Cooper

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  1. Xuehua Cui
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  2. Jacqueline M. Grebmeier
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  3. Lee W. Cooper
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Correspondence to Xuehua Cui.

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Cui, X., Grebmeier, J.M. & Cooper, L.W. Feeding ecology of dominant groundfish in the northern Bering Sea. Polar Biol 35, 1407–1419 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-012-1180-9

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