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Feeding Habits of the Smallscale Fat Snook from East‐Central Florida
Author(s) -
DutkaGianelli Jynessa
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1080/00028487.2014.918056
Subject(s) - predation , biology , fishery , habitat , shrimp , ecology
In general, snook Centropomus spp. are opportunistic carnivores, feeding on fish and crustaceans, as shown by other studies on diets of centropomids in the western Atlantic Ocean. Diet studies for centropomids in Florida refer only to a description of the diet and the ontogenetic shifts in prey preferences of Common Snook C. undecimalis . However, no food habit information for Smallscale Fat Snook C . parallelus is available in Florida. Stomach content analysis and quantitative descriptions of fish diet are important in understanding how species utilize resources, coexist in certain habitats, and possibly share available prey. The objective of this study was to describe the dietary composition for Smallscale Fat Snook in east‐central Florida, in comparison to other diet studies for Smallscale Fat Snook and its congeners. The results show that, like other snook species, Smallscale Fat Snook is a carnivorous species, juveniles feed mainly on penaeid shrimp, and larger fish feed more on varied prey, mainly portunid crabs and teleost species. The diverse diet composition of Smallscale Fat Snook in east‐central Florida suggests that the species is an opportunistic feeder, exploiting locally abundant prey, and feeds in a variety of estuarine and riverine habitats. Received March 18, 2014; accepted April 17, 2014