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Trophic interactions between migratory seabirds, predatory fishes and small pelagics in coastal West Africa

2019; Inter-Research; Volume: 622; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3354/meps13022

1616-1599

Edna Correia, José P. Granadeiro, VA Mata, Aissa Regalla, Paulo Catry,

Marine animal studies overview

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 622:177-189 (2019) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13022 Trophic interactions between migratory seabirds, predatory fishes and small pelagics in coastal West Africa Edna Correia1,*, José Pedro Granadeiro1, Vanessa A. Mata2, Aissa Regalla3, Paulo Catry4 1Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal 2CIBIO-InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal 3IBAP - Instituto da Biodiversidade e das Áreas Protegidas da Guiné-Bissau, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau 4MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA - Instituto Universitário, 1149-041 Lisbon, Portugal *Corresponding author: ednaritacorreia@gmail.com ABSTRACT: Competition, predation and facilitation shape community structure. Yet facilitative behaviour is poorly studied, especially in marine ecosystems. We investigated the diet and foraging behaviour of 5 Afro-Palaearctic migratory seabirds during their non-breeding period in West Africa, focussing on their facilitative associations with predatory fishes. We used next-generation sequencing to describe the diet of 5 tern species, employing DNA metabarcoding for the identification of prey from droppings. This is the first time this method has been used for studying the diet of non-breeding migratory seabirds. Our results showed a high diet overlap among all seabirds, mostly due to the dominance of a single prey species, Sardinella maderensis (with a mean frequency of occurrence of 90% in tern diets). The subsurface marine predators identified in association with terns were crevalle jack Caranx hippos and West African Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus tritor, 2 predatory fishes which also rely on Sardinella maderensis as their most frequent prey in the study area, the Bijagós Archipelago. There were marked inter-specific differences in the reliance of terns on subsurface marine predators as facilitators, ranging from completely independent (little tern Sternula albifrons) to near-obligatory (black tern Chlidonias niger). The varied feeding strategies and small-scale spatial segregation may explain the co-existence of the 5 tern species during the non-breeding period, preying mostly on the same clupeids. Declines both in predatory fishes and in Sardinella maderensis and other clupeids are likely to impact the long-distance migrant seabirds studied here, calling for integrated management of fisheries in these coastal ecosystems. KEY WORDS: Predator-prey interaction · Tern · Next-generation sequencing · DNA metabarcoding · Sympatric predators · Facilitated foraging Full text in pdf format Supplementary material PreviousNextCite this article as: Correia E, Granadeiro JP, Mata VA, Regalla A, Catry P (2019) Trophic interactions between migratory seabirds, predatory fishes and small pelagics in coastal West Africa. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 622:177-189. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13022 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 622. Online publication date: July 18, 2019 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2019 Inter-Research.