Data/hora: 02/06/2024 08:37:00

Provedor de dados: | 83
País: | Brazil
Título: | Assessing diet composition of seahorses in the wild using a non destructive method: Hippocampus reidi (Teleostei: Syngnathidae) as a study-case
Autores: | Castro,André Luiz da Costa; Diniz,Aline de Farias; Martins,Ieda Zaparolli; Vendel,Ana Lúcia; Oliveira,Tacyana Pereira Ribeiro de; Rosa,Ierecê Maria de Lucena.
Data: | 2008-12-01
Ano: | 2008
Palavras-chave: | Natural diet; Husbandry; Conservation.
Resumo: | This paper presents the results of the first analysis of the natural diet of Hippocampus reidi, one of the most sought after seahorse species in the international aquarium trade. Its main goals were to investigate food items and prey categories consumed by the species, and to discuss feeding strategy and inter and intra-individual components of niche breadth. Data were gathered from October 2005 to September 2006 at the Mamanguape estuary, State of Paraíba, NE Brazil. Food items from seahorses anaesthetized with clove oil were obtained by using a modified version of the flushing method, and were counted and identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level. Specimens were marked and had their height, sex, life and reproductive stage recorded, and then returned to the same place where they were found for the further assessment of anaesthetization/gut flushing on seahorses. Food items were analyzed using frequency of occurrence, relative abundance, index of preponderance and prey-specific abundance using the points method. The graphic method of Amundsen et al. (1996) was used to interpret the feeding strategy and contribution to niche breadth. Nematodes and crustaceans were the most important items found, the latter item usually being the most commonly found in the gut contents of syngnathids. No significant differences in diet composition were found between reproductive stages, however, a higher proportion of large items were consumed by the larger seahorses. The feeding strategy and niche breadth analysis suggests that H. reidi has a generalist feeding strategy, with high variation between phenotypes. Our results suggest that the anaesthetization-flushing technique has the potential to be a useful tool in seahorse research.
Tipo: | Info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Idioma: | Inglês
Identificador: | http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1679-62252008000400012
Editor: | Sociedade Brasileira de Ictiologia
Relação: | 10.1590/S1679-62252008000400012
Formato: | text/html
Fonte: | Neotropical Ichthyology  v.6 n.4 2008
Fonte: | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess