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Diet overlap and resource partitioning among three forage fish species in Coorong, the largest inverse estuary in Australia

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Abstract

Protracted drought in southern Australia has degraded the system function of the Coorong estuary and intensified resource competition among forage fish species. The present study investigates the gut content, prey composition and dietary overlap of three forage fishes: smallmouth hardyhead (Atherinosoma microstoma), Tamar River goby (Afurcagobius tamarensis) and sandy sprat (Hyperlophus vittatus) influenced by environmental variation in the Murray Estuary and Coorong. The prey species identified in fish stomachs were dominated by crustaceans (amphipods, ostracods and harpacticoids), but nematodes and acanthocephalans were also common in all forage fishes. The diet of the sandy sprat and Tamar River goby highly overlapped (α = 0.8) in the Murray Estuary and all three forage fishes showed potential diet overlap (α ≥ 0.6) in the North Lagoon. Spatiotemporal variation of prey diversity was observed in smallmouth hardyhead while temporal variation of prey diversity was observed in sandy sprat and Tamar River goby. Overall, the prey abundance was temporally variable and predominantly regulated by salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, water transparency and chlorophyll a in the Murray Estuary and Coorong. This study adds to our knowledge on dietary overlap and resource partitioning among small-bodied forage fishes mediated by environmental factors in the Murray Estuary and Coorong.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank David Short and Neil Wellman for their assistance in the field. This project was carried out under a Flinders University Animal Welfare Committee Project E394. This project was partially supported by Flinders International Postgraduate Research Scholarship and conducted in conjunction with the SARDI project: Coorong fish intervention monitoring 2013/14. The monitoring program was part of the South Australian Government’s Murray Futures program, funded by the South Australian Government’s Water for the Future initiative, and supported by the Living Murray program. The Living Murray is a joint initiative funded by the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian, ACT and Commonwealth governments, coordinated by the Murray–Darling Basin Authority.

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  1. School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, South Australia

    Md Afzal Hossain, Deevesh Ashley Hemraj, Sophie C. Leterme & Jian G. Qin

  2. South Australian Research and Development Institute, PO Box 120, Henley Beach, 5022, South Australia

    Qifeng Ye

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  1. Md Afzal Hossain
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  2. Deevesh Ashley Hemraj
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Correspondence to Jian G. Qin.

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Hossain, M.A., Hemraj, D.A., Ye, Q. et al. Diet overlap and resource partitioning among three forage fish species in Coorong, the largest inverse estuary in Australia. Environ Biol Fish 100, 639–654 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-017-0592-3

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