Trophic Ecology of Mesopelagic Fish Larvae and Juveniles in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

<p>The deep-pelagic environment encompasses ocean waters below 200 m depth, and comprises 90% of the volume of the Gulf of Mexico. Deep-pelagic fishes are important prey for many oceanic consumers, but relatively little is known about their early life history, including larval fish trophic ecology. An understanding of the role deep-pelagic fish larvae have in oceanic food webs is important in the development of ecosystem models that examine the connectivity (via vertical migrations) between the deep-pelagic and epipelagic environments with respect to trophic interactions, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration. In this study, archived plankton samples collected during 2010 and 2011 were used to describe the trophic ecology of the dominant deep-pelagic fish larvae collected in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Bulk-tissue stable isotope analysis of δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N were performed on larvae from four different families: Myctophidae (Lanternfishes), Gonostomatidae (Bristlemouths), Sternoptychidae (Hatchetfishes) and Phosichthyidae (Lightfishes). Gut contents were counted and identified to provide taxon-specific diet information. In addition, compound-specific stable isotope analysis of amino acids of nitrogen was performed on a subset of samples from the Family Paralepididae (Barracudinas) to elucidate ontogenetic shifts in diet.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2021

Author dc:creator

• Gipson, Emily

Contributors dc:contributor

• Frank Hernandez
• Kevin Dillon
• Verena Wang

• fish
• larval
• isotope
• trophic
• deep sea
• mesopelagic
• Aquaculture and Fisheries
• Marine Biology
• Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/811

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1868