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Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2018, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (1): 309-313.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.201801.037

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Trophic niche partitioning of pelagic sharks in Central Eastern Pacific inferred from stable isotope analysis.

LI Yun-kai1,2,3*, GAO Xiao-di1, WANG Lin-yu1, FANG Lin1   

  1. 1College of Marine Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China;
    2National Engineering Research Centre for Oceanic Fisheries, Shanghai 201306, China;
    3Key Laboratory of Sustainable Exploitation of Oceanic Fisheries Resources, Ministry of Education, Shanghai 201306, China
  • Received:2017-09-06 Online:2018-01-18 Published:2018-01-18
  • Contact: * E-mail: ykli@shou.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (17ZR1413000) and the Innovative Program for Shanghai College Students (S201710264026).

Abstract: As the apex predators of the open ocean ecosystems, pelagic sharks play important roles in stabilizing the marine food web through top-down control. Stable isotope analysis is a powerful tool to investigate the feeding ecology. The carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios can be used to trace food source and evaluate the trophic position of marine organisms. In this study, the isotope values of 130 pelagic sharks from 8 species in Central Eastern Pacific were analyzed and their trophic position and niche were calculated to compare the intra/inter-specific resource partitioning in the Central Eastern Pacific ecosystem. The results exhibited significant differences in both carbon and nitrogen isotope values among the shark species. The trophic levels ranged from 4.3 to 5.4 in the Central Eastern Pacific shark community. The trophic niche of blue sharks and shortfin mako sharks showed no overlap with the other shark species, exhibiting unique ecological roles in the open ocean food web. These data highlighted the diverse roles among pelagic sharks, supporting previous findings that this species is not trophically redundant and the trophic niche of pelagic sharks can not be simply replaced by those of other top predator species.