Feeding habits and diet overlap between Delminichthys ghetaldii and Telestes dabar, two endemic species from karst poljes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Figures & data

Figure 1. Position of karst poljes (Popovo, Mokro, Dabarsko, Fatničko and Ljubomirsko) with their altitudes (in meters above the sea level), with the red circles denoting locations in them where the samples of Delminichthys ghetaldii and Telestes dabar originated from; in the bottom right corner, the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina within Europe is displayed.

Table I. Data of sampling and the number of Delminichthys ghetaldii and Telestes dabar individuals.

Locality	Date	Species	Number of specimens
Popovo Polje	1.04.2018 20.04.2018	D.ghetaldii D.ghetaldii	2 5
Mokro Polje	23.03.2018	D.ghetaldii	6
Ljubomirsko Polje	13.04.2018 17.04.2018	D.ghetaldii D.ghetaldii	10 14
Fatničko Polje	15.04.2018 22.04.2018	D.ghetaldii D.ghetaldii T.dabar	11 24 2
Dabarsko Polje	1.05.2018 16.05.2018	T.dabar T.dabar D.ghetaldii	12 25 4

Table II. Descriptive data of Delminichthys ghetaldii and Telestes dabar samples including length (mm) and weight (g) from the different poljes in Eastern Herzegovina.

Location	Species	N	Min-Max (length)	Mean± S.D. (length)	Min-Max (weight)	Mean± S.D. (weight)
Popovo	D.ghetaldii	7	97.7–143.2	122.5 ± 14.3	10.1–48.5	33.41 ± 14.2
Mokro	D.ghetaldii	6	94.5–172.5	126.6 ± 36.2	9.1–75.0	30.6 ± 27.8
Ljubomirsko	D.ghetaldii	24	50.9–77.3	61.1 ± 7.2	3.3–7.8	4.7 ± 1.3
Fatničko	D.ghetaldii	35	50.1–117.7	111.35 ± 21.30	5.4–29.9	18.2 ± 7.8
	T.dabar	2	51.2–55.4	51.4 ± 5.7	3.1–3.5	3.3 ± 0.3
Dabarsko	D.ghetaldii	4	50.5–55.2	52.8 ± 1.8	3.1–3.3	3.2 ± 0.1
	T.dabar	35	50.1–84.3	59.3 ± 13.0	3.0–9.5	6.3 ± 2.3

Table III. Results of the post-hoc Tukey HSD testing between five populations of Delminichthys ghetaldii from poljes (PP, Popovo; MP, Mokro; DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko; LP, Ljubomirsko) for body size (SL, above the diagonal) and weight (W, below the diagonal).

SL
W	PP	MP	DP	FP	LP
PP		0.998	0.000	0.000	0.000
MP	0.986		0.000	0.000	0.012
DP	0.000	0.000		0.009	0.993
FP	0.002	0.036	0.046		0.000
LP	0.000	0.000	0.997	0.000

Table IV. The complete list of prey taxa found in the diet samples of Delminichthys ghetaldii and Telestes dabar was combined into 18 distinct prey categories.

Prey category	Included Taxa
Benthic prey
Oligochaeta	Eiseniella tetraedra (Savigny 1826), Lumbriculus variegatus (Müller 1774)
Nematoda	Nematoda sp.
Crustacea	Gammarus fossarum, Asselus aquaticus (Linnaeus 1758)
Gastropoda	Bithynia tentaculata (Linnaeus 1758), Ancylus fluviatilis, Physa acuta (Draparnaud 1805)
Hydracarina	Neumania sp.
Chironomidae	Chironomus thummi, Chironomus sp.
Simulidae	Simulium sp.
Tipulidae and Tabanidae	Tabanus sp., Tipula sp.
Ephemeroptera larvae	Baetis rhodani, Habrophlebia fusca (Curtis 1834), Baetis muticus (Linnaeus 1758)
Plecoptera larvae	Perla bipunctata (Geoffroy 1762), Chloroperla tripunctata (Scopoli 1763)
Trichoptera larvae	Hydropsyche instabilis, Hydropsyche angustipennis (Curtis 1834), Sericostoma perssonatum
Coleoptera and Heteroptera larvae	Elmis aenea, Haliplus fluviiatilis (Aubé 1836), Micronecta poweri (Douglas & Scott 1869)
Zooplankton
Rotatoria	Polyarthra major (Burckhardt 1900), Polyarthra vulgaris, Keratella sp., Lepadella sp.
Cladocera	Daphnia magna (Straus 1820), Bosmina longirostris (Müller 1776)
Copepoda	Cyclops strenuus (Fischer 1851), Harpacticoid sp
Phytoplankton
Bacillariophyta	Synedra sp., Cyclotella meneghiniana (Kützing 1844), Tabellaria fenestrate (Kützing 1844), Asterionella sp., Navicula cuspidata (Kützing 1844), Fragillaria crotonensis (Kitton. 1869), Cymbella sp., Cocconeis placentula (Ehrenberg 1838), Diatoma sp.
Chlorophyta	Ulothrix sp., Spyrogira sp., Closterium sp., Ankistrodesmus sp.
Dinophyta	Ceratium hirundinella (Dujardin 1841), Cryptomonas sp.

Table V. The top five prey categories in the diet of Delminichthys ghetaldii across five karstic poljes (PP, Popovo; MP, Mokro; DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko; LP, Ljubomirsko) and Telestes dabar in two karst poljes (DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko) based on the abundance (AN), weight percentage of abundance (AW), frequency of occurrence (F) and index of relative importance (IRI). Only values for the first five prey categories for each karst polje are displayed.

	Delminichthys ghetaldii					Telestes dabar
AN	PP	MP	LP	FP	DP	FP		DP
Oligochaeta		3.50		4.54
Nematoda	45.83				5.47
Crustacea					5.53
Gastropoda			8.20
Hydracarina
Chironomidae	9.38	48.95		64.04		1.54
Simulidae		7.69			2.73
Ephemeroptera larvae	4.17
Plecoptera larvae
Trichoptera larvae				5.78
Coleoptera and Heteroptera			7.18		6.85
Rotatoria	9.90	10.49	7.18	7.44	71.19	1.54	4.29
Cladocera	15.63	23.08	52.82	18.18			4.29
Copepoda			9.23				1.43
Bacillariophyta						92.31	73.33
Chlorophyta						1.54	6.19
Dinophyta						1.54
AW
Oligochaeta	8.07	21.89		19.88
Nematoda	7.58				3.79
Crustacea					25.31
Gastropoda			16.68
Hydracarina					6.32
Chironomidae	14.68	51.20		43.02			7.52
Simulidae		7.06					7.52
Ephemeroptera larvae			9.18
Plecoptera larvae			9.79				5.01
Trichoptera larvae	43.59	9.88		34.47
Coleoptera and Heteroptera			23.70		12.65		7.52
Rotatoria				0.45
Cladocera	2.64	3.32	18.35	2.17	37.97	6.43
Copepoda						3.86
Bacillariophyta						75.58	52.90
Chlorophyta						9.0
Dinophyta						3.86
F
Oligochaeta		33.33		16.66
Nematoda	100
Crustacea					50.0
Gastropoda			25.0
Hydracarina	43
Chironomidae	57	100.0		76.66
Simulidae		66.67
Ephemeroptera larvae			25.0		50.0
Plecoptera larvae			25.0
Trichoptera larvae	71.43			13.33
Coleoptera and Heteroptera
Rotatoria		50.0	25.0	27.0	75.0	50.0	20.0
Cladocera	57.14	50.0	50.0	40.0	100.0	50.0	10.0
Copepoda			20.0		50.0
Bacillariophyta						100.0	56.67
Chlorophyta						50.0	16.67
Dinophyta						50.0	20.0
IRI
Oligochaeta		5.78		4.0
Nematoda	40.98				3.09
Crustacea					10.27
Gastropoda			10.17
Hydracarina
Chironomidae	10.55	68.40		80.65			0.71
Simulidae		6.71
Ephemeroptera larvae			4.59
Plecoptera larvae			5.05	5.27
Trichoptera larvae	26.17
Coleoptera and Heteroptera			7.57		2.3
Rotatoria	3.66	4.14		2.07	5.0	2.17	2.02
Cladocera	8.01	9.01	58.21	7.99	72.75	1.47	1.64
Copepoda
Bacillariophyta						91.27	90.04
Chlorophyta						2.86	1.67
Dinophyta						1.47

Figure 2. (a) Simpson’s diversity index of the diet of Delminichthys ghetaldii in the five studied karst poljes (b) Poljes diversity: Popovo (PP), Mokro (MP), Ljubomirsko (LP), Fatničko (FP) and Dabarsko (DP). The y-axis represents Simpson’s diversity index, and the x-axis poljes.

Table VI. Diet overlaps of Delminichthys ghetaldii among five poljes (PP, Popovo; MP, Mokro; DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko; LP, Ljubomirsko) high overlapping is in shaded (0–1, low–high).

	PP	MP	LP	FP	DP
PP		0.26	0.20	0.27	0.21
MP	0.26		0.11	0.99	0.14
LP	0.20	0.14		0.12	0.96
FP	0.27	0.99	0.12		0.11
DP	0.21	0.14	0.96	0.11

Table VII. The electivity of the most significant prey categories in the diet of Delminichthys ghetaldii across five karst poljes (PP, Popovo; MP, Mokro; DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko; LP, Ljubomirsko) and Telestes dabar in two karst poljes (DP, Dabarsko; FP, Fatničko) is classified as positive (+, > 0.3), neutral (0, −0.3–0.3), or negative (−, <−0.3) selection.

	Delminichthys ghetaldii					Telestes dabar
Prey category	PP	MP	LP	FP	DP	FP	DP
Chironomidae	o	o	-	+	-	-	-
Cladocera	+	+	+	+	+	+	-
Bacillariophyta	-	-	-	-	-	+	+
Rotatoria	o	o	o	o	o	-	o
Hydracarina	-	/	o	-	o	-	-
Trichoptera	o	o	-	-	-	/	-
Ephemeroptera	o	/	o	/	-	/	-

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