Diet richness of invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish revealed by DNA barcoding

Abstract

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 472:249-256 (2013) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09992 Diet richness of invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish revealed by DNA barcoding Isabelle M. Côté1,2,*, Stephanie J. Green1, James A. Morris Jr.3, John L. Akins4, Dirk Steinke5 1Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada 2Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Göteborg, Box 463, 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden 3National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, 101 Pivers Island Road, Beaufort, North Carolina 28516, USA 4Reef Environmental Education Foundation, 98300 Overseas Hwy, Key Largo, Florida 33037, USA 5Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada *Email: imcote@sfu.ca ABSTRACT: Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois spp. have recently invaded marine habitats throughout the western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. Their unusual hunting behaviour suggests that they could prey on most fish species within their gape size limits. However, few prey species have been identified so far due to the challenges of identifying partly digested prey. Moreover, it is not clear how well the identifiable diet reflects the unidentified portion. To address these issues, we DNA-barcoded unidentifiable fish items from the stomachs of 130 lionfish captured on Bahamian coral reefs. We identified 37 fish prey species, nearly half of which had not previously been recorded in this region. The total richness of lionfish prey fish recorded so far may represent up to ~54% of potential prey species on the study reefs. The relative importance of prey species in the visually identifiable diet portion, which was limited to 25% of prey items, differed from that in the ‘unidentifiable’ portion, which was largely resolved here with barcoding, weakening extrapolations from visual identification. The high diet resolution afforded by barcoding can increase our ability to predict the impacts of invasive predators on recipient communities. KEY WORDS: Barcoding · Diet composition · Lionfish · Invasion biology · Predator−prey interactions · Stomach content analysis Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Côté IM, Green SJ, Morris JA Jr, Akins JL, Steinke D (2013) Diet richness of invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish revealed by DNA barcoding. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 472:249-256. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09992 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 472. Online publication date: January 09, 2013 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2013 Inter-Research.