Food Requirements and Sources for Juvenile Atlantic Menhaden

Autor: William E. Schaaf, David S. Peters
Rok vydání: 1981
Předmět:
Zdroj: Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 110:317-324
ISSN: 1548-8659
0002-8487
Popis: The role of juvenile Atlantic menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus in the energetics of the estuarine and nearshore ecosystem along the Atlantic coast of the United States is unknown, though hypothesized to be significant. Our objectives were to summarize existing data on feeding rates of individual fish and on population size, and to combine them to produce a preliminary estimate of the food required by the population of juveniles. Estimates of the total food consumed by each fish during its residency in the estuary ranged from 21.5 to 32.7 g dry weight of organic matter. Three population estimates ranged from 4.4 × 109 to 11.2 × 109 fish present in the autumn. An assumed average of 8.5 × 109 Atlantic menhaden would consume from 183 × 106 to 278 × 106 kg of organic matter, which is 6–9% of estimated phytoplankton production. The population's estimated daily consumption in the autumn ranges from 0.6 to 1.0 g/m2, which equals the average daily phytoplankton production of 0.8 g/m2. We conclude that the pop...
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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