Ecologia trófica de peixes pelágicos no Arquipélago de Fernando de Noronha, Atlântico Equatorial, Brasil

Abstract

The Fernando de Noronha Archipelago represents one of the areas of greatest biological productivity in Brazilian territory, being an important site from the trophic point of view for several species such as tunas and tuna-like resources, but still little studied in the light of their trophic ecology. Trophic interactions and feeding habits among four large pelagic fish: Acanthocybium solandri, Coryphaena hippurus, Sphyraena barracuda and Thunnus albacares, were investigated through the integrated use of stomach content analysis (SCA) and stable isotope analysis (SIA), in order to observe the degree of niche overlap and partition of resources between them. The samples were collected in a non-regular period between 2018 and 2019. The fish were measured on board and the stomachs and muscle tissues removed during evisceration. In the laboratory, stomachs were analyzed using the Index of Relative Importance to estimate the importance of each prey in the diet, the graph by Costello (1990) modified by Amundsen et al. (1996) to describe the feeding strategy adopted by predators, Levins' standardized index to calculate the range of trophic niche and the MacArthur and Levins index to investigate overlapping diets. The isotopic compositions were measured using Biplots, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to evaluate possible differences in carbon and nitrogen between species, the Spearman correlation to examine nitrogen relations as a function of body length, and Ellipses (Layman et al. 2007) to characterize the isotopic niche areas of the four fish. All statistical analysis was performed using the software R 3.4.4 (R Core Team, 2018 - Rstudio). The analysis of stomach contents exposed a food spectrum made up of different food items, with 40 different types of prey being identified, organized in teleosts, molluscs, crustaceans and jellies. Diodontidae and Exocoetidae were the main prey consumed by A. solandri and S. barracuda. T. albacares consumed mainly a large proportion of Teleósteos and secondarily larvae of crustaceans and squid Teuthidae. Exocoetidae and Dactylopteridae were more representative in the diet of C. hippurus. Predators showed a tendency to specialize in prey consumption; in addition to a narrow niche range and low food overlap. The stable isotopic analysis of 213 evaluated tissues detected a variation in the carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) ratios in the analyzed tissues between species, highlighting the different prey consumed by predators. A positive and significant relationship in increasing the concentration of δ15N as a function of body size in the tissues was found for S. barracuda, and δ13C for T. albacares as a result of the different nutritional requirements throughout the species life cycle. Examination of the overlapping of isotopic spaces occupied by predators showed that A. solandri exhibited the largest ellipse area and a niche overlap that included all species. T. albacares and C. hippurus expressed a more pronounced overlap in similar shape and size of the ellipses, expressing that predators can assimilate prey with a similar trophic position. Our results suggest that as a result of the high availability of food items offered by the AFN, species are organized in order to reduce competition and maximize energy gain, facilitating coexistence between them in the same ecosystem, as a sign that these fish are adapt to the trophic environment where they live.