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Diet variation and the consumptive effects of native centrarchids on benthic macroinvertebrates in wetlands

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Date Issued:
2012
Summary:
Fish predation can have structuring effects in aquatic communities, but the most important fish predators are not always immediately obvious. Generalist fish predators often occupy similar habitats and consume similar prey making determination of their consumptive impacts difficult. Understanding these consumptive impacts is important for understanding complex wetland food webs. I collected warmouth (Lepomis gulosus), bluespotted sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus), and dollar sunfish (Lepomis marginatus) in two seasons from sloughs for both diet and bioenergetics analysis. Macroinvertebrates dominated diets of the three species, and nonparametric analyses revealed evidence of diet ontogeny in warmouth and potential competition for prey items among gape-matched individuals. Bioenergetics modeling revealed high levels of macroinvertebrate comsumption by these species relative to macroinvertebrate reproductive output suggesting that when combined with other sources of mortality, consumptive pressures placed by sunfish on benthic macroinvertebrates may be quite large.
Title: Diet variation and the consumptive effects of native centrarchids on benthic macroinvertebrates in wetlands.
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Name(s): Bransky, Jacob.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Center for Environmental Studies
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Issued: 2012
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: ix, 82 p. : ill.
Language(s): English
Summary: Fish predation can have structuring effects in aquatic communities, but the most important fish predators are not always immediately obvious. Generalist fish predators often occupy similar habitats and consume similar prey making determination of their consumptive impacts difficult. Understanding these consumptive impacts is important for understanding complex wetland food webs. I collected warmouth (Lepomis gulosus), bluespotted sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus), and dollar sunfish (Lepomis marginatus) in two seasons from sloughs for both diet and bioenergetics analysis. Macroinvertebrates dominated diets of the three species, and nonparametric analyses revealed evidence of diet ontogeny in warmouth and potential competition for prey items among gape-matched individuals. Bioenergetics modeling revealed high levels of macroinvertebrate comsumption by these species relative to macroinvertebrate reproductive output suggesting that when combined with other sources of mortality, consumptive pressures placed by sunfish on benthic macroinvertebrates may be quite large.
Identifier: 820562177 (oclc), 3356894 (digitool), FADT3356894 (IID), fau:3990 (fedora)
Note(s): by Jacob Bransky.
Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012.
Includes bibliography.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
System requirements: Adobe Reader.
Subject(s): Wetland ecology
Predatory marine animals -- Ecology
Predation (Biology)
Habitat selction
Marine ecosystem management
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3356894
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU