Diet is correlated with otolith shape in marine fish

• Published in: Marine Ecology Progress Series
• Main Authors: Mille, T., Mahe, K., Cachera, Marie, Villanueva, M. C., Pontual, H., De, Ernande, B.
• Other Authors: Laboratoire Ressources Halieutiques de Boulogne (LRHBL), Unité Halieutique Manche Mer du Nord (HMMN), Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement Marin (LEMAR) (LEMAR), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Unité Sciences et Technologies Halieutiques (STH), Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: somatic growth; Saccular otolith; ACL; atlantic cod; cod gadus-morhua; condition indexes; English Channel; Fourier analysis; increment widths; individual foraging specialization; Interspecific; Morphometric analysis; movement patterns; Otolith growth; stable-isotopes; stock discrimination; Stomach contents; trout oncorhynchus-mykiss; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces; environment; Gadus morhua
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01483183; https://hal.science/hal-01483183/document; https://hal.science/hal-01483183/file/m555p167.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11784

00000 ăWOS:000383801600012 International audience Previous studies have shown that the amount of food influences fish otolith structure, opacity and shape and that diet composition has an effect on otolith chemical composition. This study investigated the potential correlation between diet and otolith shape in 5 wild marine fish species by addressing 4 complementary questions. First, is there a global relationship between diet and otolith shape? Second, which prey categories are involved in this relationship? Third, what are the respective contributions of food quantity and relative composition to diet-otolith shape co-variation? Fourth, is diet energetic composition related to otolith shape? For each species, we investigated how otolith shape varies with diet. These questions were tackled by describing diet in the analysis in 4 different ways, while also including individual-state variables to remove potential confounding effects. First, besides the strong effect of individual-state, a global relationship between diet and otolith shape was detected for 4 out of 5 fish species. Second, both main and secondary prey categories were related to variability in otolith shape, and otolith outline reconstructions revealed that both otolith global shape and its finer details co-varied with these prey categories. Third, the contribution of relative diet composition to diet-otolith shape co-variation was much higher than that of ingested food quantity. Fourth, the energetic composition of diet was related to otolith shape of only 1 species. These results suggest that diet in marine fish species may influence the quantity and composition of saccular endolymph proteins which play an important role in otolith biomineralization and their resulting 3D structure.