Dinâmica da partilha dos recursos alimentares entre peixes piscívoros numa lagoa do semiárido brasileiro

Abstract

The dynamics of resource partitioning among species from the same trophic guild, reduces competition and allows coexistence between them. Such sharing can result from different environmental performance and morphological changes resulting from the differential use of food resources. In this study, we evaluated the dynamic of partitioning of food resources in a guild of piscivorous fish, considering the ecomorphology and feeding of the species. Samples were collected monthly, between March/2007 and February/2008, the pond Curralinho, inserted in the semiaridnortheast. We evaluated the five most abundant species ofpiscivorous guild, and they are Acestrorhynchus lacustris, Acestrorhynchus britskii, Hoplias malabaricus, Pygocentrus piraya e Serrasalmus brandtii. The association of the informations trophics and ecomorphologicals of the evaluated piscivores resulted in similar patterns of clustering, demonstrating that the species that used different food resources, also possessed distinct morphological. The first group focused concentrated the two Serrasalminae species, while the second contained Hoplias malabaricus and two species of Acestrorhynchus. Among the species of Serrasalminae and Acestrorhynchus, morphological changes were not observed. However, among the members of Serrasalminae differences were observed in the strategies and food preferences, indicating a partitioning of resources between them. Such sharing can be evidenced by the intermediate value of dietary overlap between these two species. The food overlap index shows high values just within the group formed by H malabaricus and the two Acestrorhynchus species, however H. malabaricus differed in their strategy and food preference, which can contribute to reducing the potentialcompetitive with Acestrorhynchus. Just between the two species Acestrorhynchus did not show differences in strategy and food preference, indicating that theyhad the highest competitive potential between piscivorous evaluated. We emphasize the importance of the concomitant use of analysis ecomorphological and feeding, which is essential to a better understanding of the real trophic sharing.