ISSN: 0001-5113 ACTA ADRIAT., ORIgINAl ReSeARCh papeR AADRAY 55(1): 75 - 84, 2014 Diet and feeding habits of Spicara maena and S. smaris (Pisces, Osteichthyes, Centracanthidae) in the North Aegean Sea Paraskevi K. Karachle1 and Konstantinos I. StergIou1, 2 1Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, 46.7 km Athens Sounio ave., P.O. Box 712, 19013 Anavyssos Attiki, Greece 2Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Biology, Department of Zoology, Laboratory of Ichthyology, Box 134, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece *Corresponding author, e-mail:
[email protected] In the present paper we studied the diet of two centracanthid species, Spicara maena and S. smaris, in the N Aegean Sea. Overall, 282 and 118 individuals were examined, respectively. Both species preyed upon zooplankton, notably Copepoda (54.3 and 63.5%, respectively). S. maena included in its diet a wider variety of food items (36 taxa) compared to S. smaris (12 taxa). The individual trophic levels for both species ranged from 3.00 to 4.50 (mean values ± strandard error: 3.21±0.058 for S. maena and 3.05±0.068 for S. smaris). Given their trophic position and local abun- dance, they play a crucial role in the flux of energy from low to high trophic levels of the Aegean benthic and pelagic food webs. Key words: alimentary tract, diet, trophic levels, North aegean Sea, centracanthidae, greece INTRODuCTION global fisheries production originates mostly from greece, where they are mainly fished in the family centracanthidae includes 2 gen- the waters surrounding cyclades Islands and era (Centracanthus and Spicara) and 7 species their populations are fully exploited (StergIou (FishBase: www.fishbase.org; FroeSe & Pauly, et al., 2011), but it also plays important role in 2012).