Retrospective on the origin, intent, and impact of the Gutshops and some directions for the future

Abstract

The eighth in a series of workshops on fish feeding ecology (“Gutshops”) was held in 2015, continuing a tradition started in 1976 that expanded in scope and participation. Topics in early Gutshops focused on methodology and analysis, and evolved to include niche overlap, competition, nutrition, and community trophic interactions. Major accomplishments were enhanced communications, standardization, design and evolution of indices (IRI, GII, PSIRI, etc.), statistical improvements, graphics, and chemical studies such as stable isotope and fatty acid analyses. Future directions, some of which were presented at the 2015 meeting, include internal tags (detecting feeding through movements, acidity, temperature, etc.), additional stable isotope and fatty acid analyses, genetic identification of prey and physiological indicators (enzyme analysis and digestion processes).