New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Diet composition and guild structure of mesopelagic
and bathypelagic fishes near Macquarie Island, Australia
A. C. GASKETT*
C. BULMAN+
X. HE
S. D. GOLDSWORTHY
CSIRO Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
Hobart, Tas 7001
Australia
email (Bulman):Cathy.Bulman@marine.csiro.au
*Present address: Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Vic 3052, Australia.
Abstract Mesopelagic (200-1000 m) and bathypelagic (>1000
m) fish near Macquarie Island, Australia, are important in the diets of seals,
seabirds, and Patagonian toothfish. They also form important links between the
productivity at shallow and deeper water depths. Here we analyse the diets of
23 fish species, 13 of which are from the family Myctophidae from 254 stomach
samples. Crustaceans (particularly copepods, amphipods, and euphausiids) were
the dominant prey in 18 species. Fishes were the dominant prey in five species.
Further analysis showed that five of the 13 myctophid fishes had a low level of
similarity in diet composition between individuals of each species, whereas the
other eight species had significantly high levels of similarity. Cluster
analysis and randomisation procedures suggested the existence of five trophic
guilds among the Myctophidae.
Keywords Macquarie Island; feeding ecology; diet; guild
structure; Myctophidae; mesopelagic; bathypelagic; cluster analysis
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2001, Vol. 35:
469-476
0028-8330/01/3503-0469 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand
2001
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (532K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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