Discovering hidden biodiversity: the use of complementary monitoring of fish diet based on DNA barcoding in freshwater ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Ecological monitoring contributes to the understanding of complex ecosystem functions. The diets of fish reflect the surrounding environment and habitats and may, therefore, act as useful integrating indicators of environmental status. It is, however, often difficult to visually identify items in gut contents to species level due to digestion of soft-bodied prey beyond visual recognition, but new tools rendering this possible are now becoming available. We used a molecular approach to determine the species identities of consumed diet items of an introduced generalist feeder, brown trout (Salmo trutta), in 10 Tasmanian lakes and compared the results with those obtained from visual quantification of stomach contents. We obtained 44 unique taxa (OTUs) belonging to five phyla, including seven

SUBMITTER: Jo H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4716507 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature