Figures & data
Table I. Summary of some biological and ecological parameters relating to Aspitrigla cuculus, Chelidonichthys lucerna and Eutrigla gurnardus from the north-middle Adriatic Sea sampled between 2005 and 2009. For each gurnard, samples were classified into two ontogenetic groups: juvenile and adult. TL = total length; W = weight.
Table II. Diet analysis of the main taxa preyed by Aspitrigla cuculus, Chelidonichthys lucerna and Eutrigla gurnardus in the north-middle Adriatic Sea.
Figure 1. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) ordination graph based on Bray–Curtis dissimilarity matrix. Stress values: 0.02. Diet overlap was computed on numerical abundance of prey species. Two main size classes (juvenile and adult) were considered for each gurnard (AspJuv = Aspitrigla cuculus juveniles 110 mm; AspAdu = adults > 110 mm; CheJuv = Chelidonichthys lucerna juveniles 180 mm; CheAdu = adults > 180 mm; EutJuv = Eutrigla gurnardus juveniles 100 mm; EutAdu = adults > 100 mm).
Figure 2. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) ordination graph based on Bray–Curtis dissimilarity matrix. Stress values: 0.16. Diet overlap was computed on numerical abundance of prey species. For each species, data was grouped according to size classes (juvenile and adult) and three strata of depth distribution (0–50 m, 50–100 m, 100–250 m). (AJ = Aspitrigla cuculus juveniles 110 mm; AA = adults > 110 mm; CJ = Chelidonichthys lucerna juveniles 180 mm; CA = adults > 180 mm; EJ = Eutrigla gurnardus juveniles 100 mm; EA = adults > 100 mm). Ellipses include 95% confidence interval.
Table III. Levins index (Bi), Shannon–Wiener index (H´), and evenness measure (J’) for the diet of each ontogenetic group (juvenile and adult) of Aspitrigla cuculus, Chelidonichthys lucerna and Eutrigla gurnardus.
Table IV. Morisita’s index of dietary overlap for each ontogenetic group (juvenile and adult) of Aspitrigla cuculus, Chelidonichthys lucerna and Eutrigla gurnardus.