The diet of blue whiting, hake, horse mackerel and mackerel off Portugal

By Henrique N. Cabral, A. Murta. 2002

150 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper deals with the diets of blue whiting Micromesistius poutassou (Risso 1810), hake Merluccius merluccius (L. 1758), horse mackerel Trachurus trachurus (L. 1758), and mackerel Scomber scombrus (L. 1758) off Portugal and explores variations in fish length, water depth, latitude and season. All four species feed on fish; however, hake and mackerel are the first and second most important predators, respectively, blue whiting being the most important fish prey for both species. The diets of blue whiting and horse mackerel are composed mainly of crustaceans. Diet variations according to predator fish size are more important than either latitude or depth. In the diets of blue whiting, hake and horse mackerel, prey importance increases with predator size. For blue whiting and horse mackerel, diet variations with fish length and water depth are correlated: small fish are closely associated with coastal areas where they feed on copepods and decapod larvae. Seasonality in the diet is apparent for blue whiting, hake and mackerel. For blue whiting, the decapod Pasiphaea sivado is the most important prey in summer and autumn, being replaced by the euphausid Meganyctiphanes norvegica in winter. In the diet of hake, seasonality was characterised by the major importance of Macroramphosus scolopax in autumn, whereas the diet of mackerel consisted of zooplankton in summer, fish and decapods in autumn and decapod larvae in winter. Seasonal changes in the diet of horse mackerel correspond to a higher diversity of prey in autumn compared to other seasons (although euphausids are the main prey in all seasons). Seasonality in feeding activity is not as marked for the other species as it is for horse mackerel; the percentage of empty stomachs of horse mackerel is greatest in winter, when spawning takes place at the Portuguese coast.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f11a315deb5cc8f073ba508db42ba0b065618cd1

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Citations in the corpus

Ontogenetic and spatial variation in the diet of hake (Merluccius merluccius) in the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea (2007, background): “The cannibalistic habit of hake has often been reported in the literature (Punt et al., 1992; Stobberup, 1992), but in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, the phenomenon is of less importance in some areas (Du Buit, 1996; Bozzano et al., 1997; Velasco and Olaso, 1998; Cabral and Murta, 2002).”
Lower trophic levels and detrital biomass control the Bay of Biscay continental shelf food web: Implications for ecosystem management (2011, background): “The last group was composed of the horse mackerel Trachurus trachurus, a benthopelagic species which feeds on both domains (Table 2) (Cabral and Murta, 2002).”
Demersal assemblages off portugal : Mapping, seasonal, and temporal patterns (2005, background): “Blue whiting, for example, is an important forage species for adult hakes larger than 25 cm (Silva et al., 1997) and for adult horse mackerels larger than 36 cm (Cabral and Murta, 2002; Silva et al., 1997).”
Growth and reproduction of horse mackerel, Trachurus trachurus (carangidae) (2003, background): “erel (Ben-Salem, 1988; Olaso et al., 1999; Cabral and Murta, 2002).”
Comparative ecology of widely distributed pelagic fish species in the North Atlantic: Implications for modelling climate and fisheries impacts (2014, background): “Given its spatial overlap with other planktivores such as mackerel, 8 blue whiting, and sardine, it is also likely to compete with these species for food, especially at 9 an early age (Cabral and Murta, 2002).”