RESEARCH ARTICLE


Predicting Weight Composition of Fish Diet s: Converting Frequency of Occurrence of Prey to Relative Weight Composition



K. A. Stobberup*, 1, T. Morato2, P. Amorim2, K. Erzini3
1 Fragata Azul Lda., Lisbon, Portugal
2 DOP, Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas, Universidade dos Açores, Horta, Portugal
3 CCMAR, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal


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© 2009 A. Stobberup et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Fragata Azul Lda., Lisbon, Portugal; Tel: +351 211 534 677; E-mail: kstobberup@hotmail.com


Abstract

Diet compositions expressed in weight are essential to determine the trophic relationships in energetic terms between the compartments within a system. Data from stomachs were compiled from a number of sources (62102 stomachs), covering four broad areas such as the Northwest Atlantic, South Africa, Senegal and the Azores Islands in order to explore the empirical relationships between the frequency of occurrence, which is of limited use in a modelling context, and the preferred index, relative weight composition. These empirical relationships were found to be highly significant.

Keywords: Fish diets, relative weight composition, frequency of occurrence.