A metabarcoding approach for the feeding habits of European hake in the Adriatic Sea.

ABSTRACT: European hake (Merluccius merluccius) is one of the most economically important fish for the Mediterranean Sea. It is an important predator of deep upper shelf slope communities currently characterized by growth overexploitation: the understanding of hake's diet might support next generation management tools. However, all current European hake diet studies depend on the morphological identification of prey remains in stomach content, with consequent limitations. In this study, we set up a metabarcoding approach based on cytochrome oxidase I PCR amplification and Miseq Illumina paired-end sequencing of M. merluccius stomach content remains and compared the results to classic morphological analyses. A total of 95 stomach contents of M. merluccius sampled in the North-Cen

SUBMITTER: Riccioni G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6238138 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature