Content area
Full Text
Correspondence should be addressed to: A. Neves, MARE–Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre & Departamento Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Bloco C2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Studies on diet and feeding strategy of fish species are fundamental to understand many aspects of their biology, ecology, physiology and behaviour (Gonçalves & Erzini, 1998). Such studies are even more crucial when involving upper trophic level species, which are especially important due to their recent global declines and the potential for associated ecosystem-level effects on species composition and diversity (Pauly et al., 1998). In this context, stomach content analysis is the most widely used method for studying the diet of fish, allowing determination of the role of a species in the food chain (Hyslop, 1980) and therefore contributes to the study of intra- and inter-specific relationships in the ecosystem.
The forkbeard Phycis phycis (Linnaeus, 1766) is a gadiform benthopelagic fish with a wide distribution in the North-east Atlantic (from the Bay of Biscay to Morocco, south to Cape Verde and the Azores) and in the Mediterranean Sea (Svetovidov, 1986). The forkbeard lives on hard and sandy-muddy bottoms near rocks at depths up to 650 m (Svetovidov, 1986), where it looks for shelter in holes during the day and becomes an active predator during the night, feeding mainly on fish but also on decapods (Papaconstantinou & Caragitsou, 1989; Morato et al., 1999). In the southern NE Atlantic, forkbeard is an important commercial species, both in Portugal and Spain (Vieira et al., 2014a, b, 2016a, b), with Portuguese landings reaching about 800 tons per year (INE, 2014). In Portuguese waters, this species is mainly caught by a longline fishery (trawl, trammel net and traps fisheries contribute with a small percentage of the landings) in coastal waters and offshore seamounts, in the mainland area and around Azores and Madeira archipelagos (Vieira et al., 2014a, b). Despite its economic importance, little information is available on its biology (Silva, 1986; Abecasis et al., 2009; Matić-Skoko et al., 2011; Glavić et al., 2014; Vieira et al., 2014a, 2016b).
This study aims to present new data on diet composition and feeding strategy of the forkbeard in the Portuguese continental waters focusing on...