Abstract
We reviewed literature on the diet of the Galeus melastomus Rafinesque, 1810, from the Mediterranean Sea. Specific keywords (“Galeus melastomus diet”, “feeding habits”, “trophic position”, “biology”, “deep environment adaptation”) in the principal data sources, such as Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar were used. Seventeen studies conducted on the diet and trophic position of G. melastomus have been considered for Mediterranean Sea regions. The feeding habits have been analyzed in many areas of the western basin; instead, for the Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, and central Mediterranean Seas, information is outdated and fragmentary. In all investigated sub areas, the data showed that G. melastomus is an opportunistic demersal supra benthic predator, benthic feeder, and scavenger, that adapts its diet to the seasonal and geographical fluctuations of the prey availability. It occupies a generalist niche showing individual specialization. In all reviewed Mediterranean sub areas, the most important prey groups were crustaceans, cephalopods, and teleost fishes. Taxa percentage in its diet composition can vary depending on different habitats with ontogenetic development of individuals, depth (that is correlated with the ontogenetic development), seasonal availability, and distribution of different prey groups. Widening knowledge of G. melastomus feeding habits is a fundamental tool for better understand meso and bathy-pelagic ecosystems.
Highlights
In the western Algerian coast, Cephalopods are the secondary prey for frequency of ingestion [86]. This prey category is the third in abundance in G. melastomus’ diet [54], but this can be explained with the sampling period of this study, from January to June, with lower cephalopods’ abundance. These data prove a seasonality of cephalopods frequency in stomach content of G. melastomus in this area, with an increase of this taxon in the stomach content of specimens taken in Autumn and Winter
Galeus melastomus is an opportunistic predator and scavenger, and fishing activity can supplement their food with offal and discards [51]
As shown by the reviewed literature, G. melastomus has a broad spectrum of prey, adapting its diet to seasonal and geographical fluctuations of prey availability in each Mediterranean area
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Bottom trawl fisheries capture smaller individuals of these species, these are usually discarded and, in the best case, returned to the sea [19] These are considered “indicator species” for the evaluation of fishing efforts, ecosystem stability [2,38,51,52], and broad scale changes caused by increasing exploitation in their ecosystem [53], detected by the changes in abundance and diets of G. melastomus and S. canicula [52]. We focused our attention on it for its easy availability, being in great percentage in the trawling discard, for its biological features, that make it one of the Chondrichthyes best adapted to the anthropological impacts, and for its ecological role and trophic position All these features make this species a good indicator for: (1) The monitoring of the deep sea’s habitats and trophic chains ecological status, (2) the health of the large and small elasmobranchs, with their trophic relations, and (3) the anthropological impact of trawl fisheries in Mediterranean deep environments. Most of this information comes from the central and western Mediterranean Sea, while eastern Mediterranean Sea studies are limited
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