Spatiotemporal Variations in Trophic Diversity of Fish Communities in a Marine Bay Ecosystem Based on Stable Isotope Analysis

• Published in: Fishes 2024-07, Vol.9 (7), p.262
• Main Authors: Li, Pengcheng, Chen, Wan, Wang, Kun, Xu, Binduo, Zhang, Chongliang, Ji, Yupeng, Ren, Yiping, Xue, Ying
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Benthos; Biomass; Carbon; Climate change; Commercial fishing; Community composition; Consumers; Distribution; Diversity indices; Ecologists; Ecology; Ecosystem models; Ecosystems; Environmental aspects; Fish; Fish communities; fish community; Fisheries management; Fishing; Food chains; Food webs; Identification and classification; Isotopes; isotopic diversity metrics; Marine ecosystems; Nitrogen; Nitrogen isotopes; Offshore; Organisms; spatiotemporal variations; Species composition; Species diversity; Stable isotopes; trophic diversity; Trophic relationships; Trophic structure; Variation
• ISSN: 2410-3888; 2410-3888
• DOI: 10.3390/fishes9070262

Climate change has led to significant fluctuations in marine ecosystems. As a component of the food web, the trophic diversity and spatiotemporal changes of fish communities are crucial for understanding ecosystems. In recent years, stable isotope analysis has been increasingly used as a comprehensive tool for quantitative assessment of trophic diversity to explore spatiotemporal variations in fish community diversity. This study is based on carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope analysis using different biomass-weighted isotope diversity indices, including isotopic divergence index (IDiv), isotopic dispersion index (IDis), isotopic evenness index (IEve), and isotopic uniqueness index (IUni). The overall results indicate that IDis, IEve, and IUni values of fish communities were relatively low, while IDiv was relatively high in the Haizhou Bay ecosystem. IDiv, IDis, IEve, and IUni were lower in autumn than in spring; IDiv and IDis were relatively higher in offshore waters, while IEve and IUni were relatively higher in inshore waters. The changes in species composition and intensive pelagic–benthic coupling in Haizhou Bay may lead to significant spatiotemporal variations in the trophic diversity of fish communities in the area. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating trophic relationships into ecosystem models, which will help to enhance our understanding of the complexity of the trophic structure of fish communities.