Growth, maturity, and diet of the pearl whipray ( Fontitrygon margaritella ) from the Bijagós Archipelago, Guinea-Bissau

The pearl whipray (Compagno & Roberts, 1984) is a common elasmobranch in coastal western African waters. However, knowledge on their life-history and trophic ecology remains limited. Therefore, we aimed to determine the growth, maturity and diet of from the Bijagós Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2022-03, Vol.10, p.e12894-e12894, Article e12894
Main Authors: Clements, Owen N, Leurs, Guido, Witbaard, Rob, Pen, Ido, Verkuil, Yvonne I, Govers, Laura L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Analysis
Animals
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science
Archipelagoes
Batoidea
Coastal ecology
Coasts
Diet
Ecology
Ecosystems
Female
Fontitrygon
Growth
Guinea-Bissau
Juveniles
Life history
Male
Marine Biology
Maturity
Molecular Biology
Ontogenetic shifts
Ontogeny
Ovaries
Size-at-maturity
Skates, Fish
Standard deviation
Trends
Trophic ecology
Vertebrae
Zoology
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Summary:The pearl whipray (Compagno & Roberts, 1984) is a common elasmobranch in coastal western African waters. However, knowledge on their life-history and trophic ecology remains limited. Therefore, we aimed to determine the growth, maturity and diet of from the Bijagós Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau. Growth was modelled with: von Bertalanffy, Gompertz and logistic functions. Model selection revealed no model significantly outperformed another. The sampled age ranged from less than 1 to 7 years (1.8 ± 1.9 cm, mean ± standard deviation) and size (disc width) ranged from 12.2 to 30.6 cm (18.7 ± 5.2 cm). Size-at-maturity was estimated at 20.3 cm (95% CI [18.8-21.8 cm]) for males and 24.3 cm for females (95% CI [21.9-26.5 cm]), corresponding ages of 2.2 and 3.9 years. The diet differed significantly among young-of-the-year (YOY), juveniles and adults ( = 0.001). Diet of all life stages consisted mainly of crustaceans (27.4%, 28.5%, 33.3%) and polychaetes (12.5%, 26.7%, 20.3%), for YOY, juveniles and adults respectively. This study shows that is relatively fast-growing, matures early and experiences ontogenetic diet shifts. These results contribute to status assessments and conservation efforts of and closely related species.
ISSN:2167-8359
2167-8359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.12894