Long-term changes in the diet of Gymnogobius isaza from Lake Biwa, Japan: effects of body size and environmental prey availability

PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e53167. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053167. Epub 2012 Dec 28.

Abstract

Body size and environmental prey availability are both key factors determining feeding habits of gape-limited fish predators. However, our understanding of their interactive or relative effects is still limited. In this study, we performed quantitative dietary analysis of different body sizes of goby (Gymnogobius isaza) specimens collected from Lake Biwa between 1962 and 2004. First, we report that the diet was composed mainly of zooplankton (cladocerans and copepods) before the 1980s, and thereafter, shifted to zoobenthos (gammarids). This foraging shift coincided with, and thus can be linked to, known historical events in the lake at that time: decrease in zooplankton abundance with the alleviation of eutrophication, increase in fish body size resulting from fish population collapse, and increase in gammarid abundance due to reduced fish predation pressure. Supporting this view, our data analyses revealed how the long-term changes in the diet composition would be co-mediated by changes in fish body size and environmental prey availability. Specifically, while zoobenthos abundance strongly affected the fish diet composition, larger (smaller) fish preferred zoobenthos (zooplankton). Furthermore, the body size effects were stronger than those of prey availability. These results provide the best long-term evidence that fish feeding habits vary over decades with its body size and prey community due to anthropogenic disturbances.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
  • Animals
  • Body Size / physiology*
  • Diet*
  • Environment
  • Feeding Behavior / physiology
  • Food Chain*
  • Japan
  • Lakes
  • Perciformes / anatomy & histology
  • Perciformes / physiology*
  • Predatory Behavior* / physiology
  • Time Factors

Grants and funding

This research was supported by a joint program between the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University and the Research Center for the Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Santo Tomas. TN was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (2103033) and Kurita Water and Environment Foundation (23299). CH was supported by a grant for Frontier and Innovative Research of National Taiwan University and National Science Council of Taiwan. NO was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-9-4) of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.