Diet Analysis of Black Rockfish (Sebastes Melanops) from Stomach Contents Off the Coast of Newport, Oregon
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Diet analysis of Black Rockfish (Sebastes melanops) from stomach contents off the coast of Newport, Oregon by Renee Doran A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology: Marine Biology Option (Honors Scholar) Presented November 16, 2020 Commencement June 2021 1 2 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Renee Doran for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology: Marine Biology Option presented on November 16, 2020. Title: Diet analysis of Black Rockfish (Sebastes melanops) from stomach contents off the coast of Newport, Oregon Abstract approved:_____________________________________________________ Scott Heppell Black Rockfish are important commercial and recreational species and understanding their biology is useful in developing best management practices. A common means to assess diet in both freshwater and marine fishes is stomach content analysis, which can determine diet composition and infer foraging behaviors. We conducted a stomach content analysis on 263 Black Rockfish stomachs from fish caught off Newport, Oregon in March and June through September. We enumerated and identified prey taxa to determine an index of relative importance (IRI) for prey groups. We processed stomachs and recorded prey weight, number of prey, and prey variation per stomach and measured total (filleted) length and sex for each sample. We found crab megalopa had the highest IRI but were not significantly more important than other prey groups. We did not find a significant difference in the diet habits of male and female fish; although, female fish had on average higher prey weight, number of prey, and variety of prey per stomach. Females have a higher reproductive investment which may account for this. We found there were significant differences between months, with prey weight per stomach increasing from March to September. In all three measures September had the highest mean weight, number, and variety of prey per stomach and March had the lowest. This indicates potential shifting of prey availability and abundance seasonally as well as potential changes in energy demands with reproductive efforts driving increased feeding rates. Key Words: Black Rockfish, stomach content analysis, Index of Relative Importance, diet analysis Corresponding e-mail address: [email protected] 3 ©Copyright by Renee Doran November 16, 2020 4 Diet analysis of Black Rockfish (Sebastes melanops) from stomach contents off the coast of Newport, Oregon by Renee Doran A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology: Marine Biology Option (Honors Scholar) Presented November 16, 2020 Commencement June 2021 5 Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Biology: Marine Biology Option project of Renee Doran presented on November 16, 2020. APPROVED: _____________________________________________________________________ Scott Heppell, Mentor, representing Fisheries and Wildlife _____________________________________________________________________ Claire Rosemond, Committee Member, representing Fisheries and Wildlife _____________________________________________________________________ Amanda Gladics, Committee Member, representing Oregon Sea Grant _____________________________________________________________________ Toni Doolen, Dean, Oregon State University Honors College I understand that my project will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University, Honors College. My signature below authorizes release of my project to any reader upon request. _____________________________________________________________________ Renee Doran, Author 6 Diet analysis of Black Rockfish (Sebastes melanops) from stomach contents off the coast of Newport, Oregon Renee E. Doran [email protected] 7 Abstract: Black Rockfish are important commercial and recreational species and understanding their biology is useful in developing best management practices. A common means to assess diet in both freshwater and marine fishes is stomach content analysis, which can determine diet composition and infer foraging behaviors. We conducted a stomach content analysis on 263 Black Rockfish stomachs from fish caught off Newport, Oregon in March and June through September. We enumerated and identified prey taxa to determine an index of relative importance (IRI) for prey groups. We processed stomachs and recorded prey weight, number of prey, and prey variation per stomach and measured total (filleted) length and sex for each sample. We found crab megalopa had the highest IRI but were not significantly more important than other prey groups. We did not find a significant difference in the diet habits of male and female fish; although, female fish had on average higher prey weight, number of prey, and variety of prey per stomach. Females have a higher reproductive investment which may account for this. We found there were significant differences between months, with prey weight per stomach increasing from March to September. In all three measures September had the highest mean weight, number, and variety of prey per stomach and March had the lowest. This indicates potential shifting of prey availability and abundance seasonally as well as potential changes in energy demands with reproductive efforts driving increased feeding rates. Introduction: Predator abundance and foraging behavior changes based on prey availability, which in turn changes as ocean conditions vary on seasonal, annual, and decadal time scales (Sweica et al. 2020, Carbone et al. 2011, and Fauchald and Erikstad 2002). The California Current System is impacted by regional and climate-scale ocean processes, such as seasonal upwelling, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). All these processes impact the distribution and abundance of prey species. For example, in the Northern California Current, PDO conditions cause shifts in copepod communities on which predators feed. For example, Coho Salmon have higher survival rates during negative PDO cycles, characterized by cooler sea surface temperatures, high lipid content copepods are more abundant (Bi et al. 2011). Changes in ENSO conditions shift prey abundances and predator diet compositions. In 2010 for example, a year characterized by El Niño conditions, warmer sea surface temperatures, Black 8 Rockfish diets were dominated by shrimp and juvenile rockfish whereas in 2011, a year characterized by La Niña conditions, their diets were primarily pteropods, krill and crab larvae (Gladics et al. 2014). Predators such as Black Rockfish and Common Murres showed different diet compositions between these years reflecting this shift in prey abundances (Gladics et al. 2014). In addition to the annual to decadal shifts described above, the California Current System experiences a seasonal shifts in species composition in response to wind-driven upwelling in the spring and summer seasons. Along the WA and OR coast, the “spring transition” usually starts between mid-March to April, and represents a transition to upwelling winds paired with more light availability leads to increased phytoplankton growth at the base of the food chain (Henson and Thomas 2007). Reductions in wind strength that occur during seasonal upwelling period lead to relaxation events and allow waters with high primary productivity to remain in nearshore waters (Garcia-Reyes and Largier 2012). This increased primary productivity leads to increased zooplankton biomass and richness, supporting productive ecosystems and commercial fishery stocks. The micronekton composition along the California Current System shows variation in species abundance based on upwelling conditions that lead to shifts in large predator abundance (Santora et al. 2012). A warming climate is creating delays in the transition into the upwelling season leading to reduced primary productivity, intertidal recruitment, zooplankton abundance and ecosystem diversity (Barth et al. 2007). The marine heat wave along the Oregon coast 2014 and 2015 caused a major ecosystem restructuring, characterized by higher abundances gelatinous species compared to crustacean species (Brodeur et al. 2019). Trophic relationships also shifted, with forage fish in the region relying on more gelatinous food sources compared to non-heat 9 wave conditions (Brodeur et al. 2019b). It is important to be able to understand how these changes impact diet to better understand how fisheries will be impacted as conditions shift. Stomach content analysis is used to determine diet composition, identify major prey species, and imply foraging behaviors. Stomach content analysis has been used across many taxa, including birds and mammals, to evaluate diet composition, identify prey, understand foraging behaviors, evaluate diet specialization, and determine niche partitioning. support diet composition and prey species identification as determined from field observations and scatological analyses in birds and mammals (Pethybridge et. al. 2011, Miller et al. 2013, Luo et al. 2016, Nakanishi and Izawa 2016, and Titulaer et al. 2017). Conducting stomach content analysis on terrestrial and charismatic marine species can be challenging because sample sizes are often limited to found carcasses, bycatch, or using regurgitated stomach contents. Stomach content analysis has been conducted more frequently on marine fishes, because samples