Feeding strategy of Downs herring larvae in the English Channel and North Sea

Type Poster
Date 2014-10-08
Language English
Author(s) Denis Jeremy1, Vallet Carole2, 3, Vincent Dorothée2, Courcot Lucie2, Marchal PaulORCID1, Loots Christophe1
Affiliation(s) 1 : IFREMER, Laboratoire Ressources Halieutiques, F-62200 Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France.
2 : ULCO, LOG, UMR CNRS 8187, F-62930 Wimereux, France.
3 : Ecole Supérieure du Professorat et de l'Education, F-59100 Lille, France.
Meeting Johan Hjort Symposium on Recruitment Dynamics and Stock Variability 7-9 October 2014, Bergen, Norway
Abstract The aim of this study was to characterize the feeding strategy of Downs herring larvae at "critical period" during winter in the English Channel and North Sea was defined to assess whether nutrition is responsible for low recruitment in stocks over the past years. Data collected during the French part of the International Bottom Trawl Survey from 2008 to 2014 were used to analyse fish larvae diet by direct observation using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Gut content methods generally used for copepods was adapted to fish larvae to assess phytoplankton ingestion. The relative importance of small preys (0,5-375µm) observed in gut contents proved the essential role of SEM to better acknowledge Downs herring diet. We demonstrated that Downs herring larvae from 6 to 20 mm were omnivorous, specialized on invertebrate eggs and more rarely consumed a variety of phytoplankton and zooplankton prey. They also seemed to positively select rare phytoplankton prey whereas they negatively select several zooplankton prey.
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Denis Jeremy, Vallet Carole, Vincent Dorothée, Courcot Lucie, Marchal Paul, Loots Christophe (2014). Feeding strategy of Downs herring larvae in the English Channel and North Sea. Johan Hjort Symposium on Recruitment Dynamics and Stock Variability 7-9 October 2014, Bergen, Norway. https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00255/36608/