Preliminary Studies on the Food and Feeding Habits of Synodontis Membraneceus from Ogobiri River, Nigeria
r 233 Preliminary studies on the food and feeding habits of Synodontis membraneceus from Ogobiri River, Nigeria Allison, M. E. / Youdubagha, S. E. Abstract Thefood andfeeding habits of Synodontis membraneceus of Ogobiri River of Bayelsa State, Nigeria was studied using 44 male and 51 female specimens that were boughtfrom fishers in the study area measuring between 5 and 25 em total length. The Numerical and the Frequency of Occurrence method of analysis were used. For the males, thefood items by the numerical method were copepods (168), insects, (118), Cladocera (69), and unidentified items (32). In thefemale specimens, thefood items were Cladocera (286), Insect (216) Copepod (100) and unidentified organisms/materials (65). In the Frequency of Occurrence method for the males, Copepod was still the highest with a total of (48), Cladocera (44), Insects (29) and unidentified (I 6). For thefemales, Cladoera (48), Insects were (30) followed by Copepods (35) and unidentified (J9). The Percentage composition offood items by the Numerical method was Cladocera (45.5%), Insects (34.5%), Copepod (12.5%), and unidentified items (7.0%) while the Percentage Frequency of Occurrence was, Cla• docera (30.5%), Insects (30.9%), Copepod (29.6%), and unidentified items (9.0%). Keywords:Numerical method,frequency of occurrence, S. membraneceus, Ogobiri River. Introduction ish is a very important source of food for humans (FAO, 2010). Information about the food habits of fishes is on defin• ing predator-prey relationship (Saa et al., 1997) and the creation of trophic models as a tool to understanding complete Fecosystem (Lopez-Perata and Arcila, 2002; Bachok et al., 2004).
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