Subtropical Asutralian juvenile fish eat meiofauna: experiments with winter whiting Sillago maculata and observations on other species

Abstract

Juvenile winter whiting S. maculata from Queensland were allowed to feed on natural and mud-dwelling meiofaunal communities in microcosms. Six juvenile whiting significantly reduced both the nematode and copepod populations in the feeding microcosms and ate a mean of 177 nematodes and 65 copepods fish-1h-1. Of the available copepods the whiting ate significantly more Brianola sp. Canuellidae sp. and Ectinosoma sp. than would have been expected by chance. Whiting require meifauna in their diet during the juvenile stages. They obtain this meiofauna from mangrove-derived detrital muds. -from Authors