Supplementary material from "A belly full of jelly? DNA metabarcoding shows evidence for gelatinous zooplankton predation by several fish species in Greenland waters" ...

• Main Authors: Dischereit, Annkathrin, Throm, Julia Katharina, Werner, Karl M., Neuhaus, Stefan, Havermans, Charlotte
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Royal Society 2024
• Subjects: Ecology not elsewhere classified; Greenland; Argentina; Cara
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7398287.v1; https://rs.figshare.com/collections/Supplementary_material_from_A_belly_full_of_jelly_DNA_metabarcoding_shows_evidence_for_gelatinous_zooplankton_predation_by_several_fish_species_in_Greenland_waters_/7398287/1

The waters off Greenland harbor a high species richness and biomass of gelatinous zooplankton (GZP), however, their role in the diet of the many fish species, including commercially exploited species, has not yet been verified. Traditionally, GZP was considered to be a trophic dead end, i.e. with a limited contribution as prey for higher trophic levels. We applied DNA metabarcoding of two gene fragments (COI, 18S V1-V2) to the stomach contents of seven pelagic and demersal fish species in Greenland waters, to identify their diet composition as well as the occurrence of GZP predation. We detected GZP DNA reads in the stomachs of all investigated fish species, with frequency of occurrences ranging from 12.5% (for Melanogrammus aeglefinus) to 50% (for Argentina silus). GZP predation had not yet been reported earlier for several of these species. GZP were found to majorly contribute to the diet of A. silus and Anarhichas denticulatus, particularly, the siphonophore Nanomia cara and the scyphozoan Atolla were of ...