Feeding habits of two shark species: velvet belly, Etmopterus spinax (Linnaeus, 1758) and blackmouth catshark, Galeus melastomus (Rafinesque, 1810), present in fishing discards in the Gulf of Cádiz

In many fisheries, such as trawl fisheries, sharks appear among the catches as bycatch or discards, and these species include velvet belly ( Etmopterus spinax ) and blackmouth catshark ( Galeus melastomus ). The objective of this study was to research the feeding habits of both species in the Gulf o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental biology of fishes 2024-02, Vol.107 (2), p.159-172
Main Authors: Rodríguez-García, Carlos, Gonçalves Neto, José Belquior, García-Romero, Cinthya, Domínguez-Bustos, Ángel Rafael, Cabrera-Castro, Remedios
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography
Aquatic crustaceans
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Bycatch
Cephalopods
Commercial fishing
Crustaceans
Diet
Discards
Ecosystems
Environment
Etmopterus spinax
Feeding behavior
Feeding habits
Fish
Fisheries
Fishing
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Galeus melastomus
Life Sciences
Marine crustaceans
Marine fishes
Nature Conservation
Predation
Sharks
Species
Time of use
Zoology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In many fisheries, such as trawl fisheries, sharks appear among the catches as bycatch or discards, and these species include velvet belly ( Etmopterus spinax ) and blackmouth catshark ( Galeus melastomus ). The objective of this study was to research the feeding habits of both species in the Gulf of Cádiz and to identify possible differences in diet depending on size and time of day. The most frequent sizes were 12–16 cm for E. spinax and 14–20 cm for G. melastomus. Both species preyed mainly on euphausiaceans and teleosts; their Index of Relative Importance (IRI) per species were as follows: E. spinax 42.30% IRI, 21.66% IRI; G. melastomus 52.33% IRI, 27.26% IRI, respectively. Only Etmopterus spinax showed significant variation in diet as a function of the time of day ( p  
ISSN:0378-1909
1573-5133
DOI:10.1007/s10641-024-01519-0