Feeding Habits of the Mesopelagic Fish Gonostoma gracile in the Northwestern North Pacific |
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| Authors: | Kazuhisa Uchikawa Orio Yamamura Yasunori Sakurai |
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| Institution: | (1) Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, Hokkaido 041-8611, Japan;(2) Hokkaido National Fisheries Research Institute, Kushiro, Hokkaido 085-0802, Japan |
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| Abstract: | The diet of Gonostoma gracile, a numerically abundant mesopelagic fish in the Subtropical Region and the Transition Domain of the northwestern North Pacific,
was examined using 520 specimens collected during June–July 1988, June 1995 and November 1995. The prey included mainly copepods,
ostracods, amphipods and euphausiids. Copepods and ostracods were the most abundant, comprising approximately 70% of the total
diet. There was little evidence of an ontogenetic dietary shift; Pleuromamma copepods were the most abundant prey for all size classes of fish ranging from 19 to 116 mm in standard length. The size
range of prey increased with growth, but all fish sizes examined fed mainly on 1–4 mm long prey. Luminescent copepods and
ostracods were the most abundant prey, suggesting that G. gracile detects its prey visually.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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| Keywords: | Gonostoma gracile mesopelagic fish diet feeding habits Pleuromamma luminescent zooplankton northwestern North Pacific |
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