Trophic resource partitioning among four sympatric lutjanid species in the southern Mexican Caribbean Sea

ABSTRACT

Snappers are marine fishes that inhabit reef ecosystems and have a wide distribution throughout tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. These species are resources of economic importance, there is a lack of biological and ecological knowledge about these species in the studied area, and their meat is highly valued for human consumption. To contribute to the ecological knowledge, this work reports on the feeding habits of four species of snapper: Lutjanus synagris, Lutjanus griseus, Lutjanus analis and Lutjanus apodus, through the identification of stomach contents and a similarity analysis for the diets. Results showed that the most important prey items were crustaceans. Differences were found in the consumption of specific prey: Portunus were mainly consumed by L. griseus; Cronius was consumed by L. apodus; and Pitho was consumed by L. analis and L. synagris. Identification of prey species to genus and species levels allowed the characterization of the feeding habits of these sympatric species and highlighted the need for research programmes focused on crustaceans that guarantee their availability and abundance in the ecosystem.

KEYWORDS:

• Snappers
• food web
• Southern Caribbean Sea
• Lutjanus
• trophic ecology

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the fisheries cooperative ‘Pescadores del Banco Chinchorro’ for their support in collecting samples, the office of the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas for allowing the fieldwork, and the students that help in the sampling collection (Brandon Alfredo Manzanilla Verde, Diana Marin Chilin and Mildred Yarely Ortiz Perez). EVA thanks COQCYT for the students’ grant. The project was authorized by the SEMARNAT-México (PPF7DGOPA-050/20). No potential competing interests are reported by the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by COQCYT (Consejo Quintanarroense de Ciencia y Tecnología).