Abstract
The food composition,spatial and trophic niche width,trophic-spatial niche overlap for five gobiid fishes in Jiaozhou Bay were studied using the Shannon-Wiener index and Pianka overlap index.The trophicspatial niche overlap was calculated to describe the relationship between feeding competition and spatial distribution of these gobiid fishes.Results showed that all the five gobiid fishes could be classified as benthic carnivorous predators.Synechogobius ommaturus fed mainly upon shrimps,polychaetes and fish.The main prey items of Amblychaeturichthys hexanema,Odontamblyopus lacepedii,Tridentiger trigonocephalus and Tridentiger barbatus were some small benthic crustaceans such as copepods,amphipods and cumacea.Among the five gobiid fishes,A.hexanema had the highest trophic niche width value(2.65) and T.trigonocephalus had the highest spatial niche width value(2.01).O.lacepedii had the lowest values of trophic niche width(1.26) and spatial niche width(0.97).The trophic niche overlap values for five gobiid fishes ranged from 0.03 to 0.64,with A.hexanema and T. barbatus having the highest trophic niche overlap value(0.64).The spatial niche overlap values were between 0.08 and 0.91,with O.lacepedii and T.barbatus having the highest spatial niche overlap value(0.91).The trophicspatial niche overlap values ranged from 0.003 2 to 0.364 8,with A.hexanema and T.barbatus having the highest trophic–spatial niche overlap value(0.3648),which may result in intensive food competition.The competitions among other gobiid fishes were reduced by partitioning of trophic and spatial niches.
Published Version
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