Feeding guilds of western Mediterranean demersal fish and crustaceans: an analysis based in a spring survey

By J. Cartes, P. Abelló, D. Lloris, A. Carbonell, P. Torres, F. Maynou, L. G. Sola. 2002

91 citations recorded by the source corpus.

2Centre Oceanografic de les Balears (I.E.O.), Moll de Ponent s/n, Ap. 291, 07080 Palma de Mallorca, Spain. 3 Centro Oceanografico de Malaga (I.E.O.), Puerto pesquero s/n, 29640 Fuengirola (Malaga), Spain. SUMMARY: The MEDITS-99 sampling was performed along all the Iberian Peninsula coasts of the western Mediterranean (from the Alboran Sea to Cape Creus) in a space-scale of 1000 Km N-S, at depths ranging between 27-790 m. Fish and decapod crustaceans were dominant in the megafaunal compartment sampled by trawling. Based on both the fish and the decapod crustacean compositions, a comparison of trophic guilds has been attempted, with fish and decapods classified as: 1) migrator macroplankton feeders (mM), 2) non-migrator macroplankton feeders (nmM), 3) nektobenthos-suprabenthos feeders (NS), 4) epibenthos feeders (Epib), 5) large detritus-scavengers (Sca), 6) infaunal feeders (Inf), 7) deposit feeders (Dep) and 8) small detritivorous feeders (Det). Multivariate techniques showed the following differences in the trophodynamics of the megafaunal assemblages along the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula: 1) crustaceans (mainly decapods) have different trophic structures on the shelf and on the slope; 2) on the slope, fish exhibited more clear changes as a function of the geographical gradient than crustaceans; and 3) trophodynamics of bathyal fish showed some geographic variations between the Alboran Sea, the Catalano-Balearic Basin, and the Algerian Basin (Vera Gulf and Alicante sectors), with a progressive north-south increase in planktophagous species.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/55e928f2cc51920dc4d193a18359ae05bd5166f5