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Abstract/Summary
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<jats:p>A combination of stomach content and stable isotope (δ<jats:sup>13</jats:sup>C, δ<jats:sup>15</jats:sup>N, and δ<jats:sup>34</jats:sup>S) analyses were used to characterize and examine spatiotemporal and ontogenetic trends in the feeding ecology of juvenile bull sharks (<jats:italic>Carcharhinus leucas</jats:italic>) captured in estuaries throughout the northwest Gulf of Mexico (GoM) between 2013 and 2016. Shark diets were dominated by fish prey taxa [&gt;98% index of relative importance (%IRI)], and of those identified to the family level, two families comprised greater than 50% IRI, Mugilidae (mullets: ∼32%) and Sciaenidae (drums and croakers: 27%). Clupeidae (herrings: 14%) and Ariidae (sea catfishes: 15%) also contributed substantially to the diet of juvenile sharks, though consumption of Ariidae increased as consumption of Clupeidae decreased in juvenile sharks larger than 893 mm Fork Length (FL) (∼1 year old). Values of δ<jats:sup>15</jats:sup>N increased significantly with shark size, indicating a shift toward larger or higher trophic level prey with increasing shark size. Latitudinal and temporal trends in δ<jats:sup>13</jats:sup>C and δ<jats:sup>34</jats:sup>S suggest isotopic variation occurred in correspondence with shifts in primary producer assemblages and environmental drivers of sampled estuaries. These results highlight the importance of teleost prey resources along the freshwater-marine continuum in the diet of juvenile bull sharks, as well as the utility of natural tracers in tracking ontogenetic trends in feeding ecology.</jats:p>
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1000
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Hinweis
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DeepGreen-ID: b39dcdef6dc141f28ca1ba672ed772e9 ; metadata provieded by: DeepGreen (https://www.oa-deepgreen.de/api/v1/), LIVIVO search scope life sciences (http://z3950.zbmed.de:6210/livivo), Crossref Unified Resource API (https://api.crossref.org/swagger-ui/index.html), to.science.api (https://frl.publisso.de/), ZDB JSON-API (beta) (https://zeitschriftendatenbank.de/api/), lobid - Dateninfrastruktur für Bibliotheken (https://lobid.org/resources/search)
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