Feeding Habits of European Hake, <I>Merluccius Merluccius</I> (Actinopterygii: Gadiformes: Merlucciidae), from the Northeastern Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

European hake, Merluccius merluccius (Linnaeus, 1758), is an important predator of deep Mediterranean upper shelf slope communities, being a nektobenthic species inhabiting a wide depth range (20–1000 m) throughout the Mediterranean Sea and the northeastern Atlantic region (Carpentieri et al. 2005). It is one of the chief commercial and most heavily exploited species of demersal fishery in all northern Mediterranean countries. Recent time-series studies referring to the western part of the Adriatic Sea have shown catches to be made up mainly of specimens shorter than 20 cm TL, with survey catch rates apparently increasing between 1985 and 1995 and decreasing in the following years both in the northern(Piccinetti and Piccinetti Manfrin 1971, Manfrin et al. 1998) and southern Adriatic Sea (Marano et al. 1998). In 2006, annual hake landings were estimated to be around 76 000 t in the Mediterranean (Anonymous 2008) and around 18 000 t in the Adriatic Sea (Anonymous 2007), with the species being the most abundant in the demersal group of the Adriatic Sea (Ungaro et al. 2001). As a rule, hake feeds predominantly on fish and crustaceans, and the proportion of piscivory increases with hake length; crustaceans appearing mostly in the stomach of <16 cm hakes in the northern-central Adriatic Sea (Karlovac 1959, Županovic 1968, Piccinetti and Piccinetti Manfrin 1971, Jukic 1972, Froglia 1973, Jardas 1976). The presently reported study analysed the diet of the hake in the northeast Mediterranean, which, given its abundance, plays an important role in comprehending the food chain dynamics. Despite hake’s environmental and economic importance (Oliver and Massuti 1995) in the Mediterranean, much of its ACTA ICHTHYOLOGICA ET PISCATORIA (2011) 41 (4): 277–284 DOI: 10.3750/AIP2011.41.4.03