Comparative feeding of three species of larval fishes in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Brevoortia patronus, Leiostomus xanthurus, and Micropogonias undulates

Abstract

The diets of larval gulf menhaden, B. patronus, of spot, L. xanthurus, and of Atlantic croaker, M. undulatus, collected in the northern Gulf of Mexico in Dec., 1979, Feb. and Dec., 1980 and Feb., 1981, were significantly (P < 0.001) different when compared with respect to length by step-wise discriminant analysis, and there was little overlap when the diets of size-specific larvae that co-occurred in discrete collections were compared by percent-similarity. Gulf menhaden larvae had a more diverse diet that included phytoplankters (diatoms and dinoflagellates) as well as zooplankters (tintinnids, pelecypods, pteropods and all stages of copepods). The diets of larval spot and Atlantic croaker were largely restricted to zooplankton. Overall diet distinctiveness, the lack of diet overlap and the lack of small-scale co-occurrence indicate that the larvae of these 3 spp. do not compete for food.