Observed Reef Fish Diet Compositions from Experimental Bait-Inhibiting Fish Trap Design

With growing research and support for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) approaches, ecological studies are becoming more relevant and applicable. Diet studies in particular help provide valuable information on complex ecosystem interactions required to inform effective EBFM decisions. Insight on competition for resources, habitat use, and seasonal variability gained by diet studies is especially important in reef ecosystems, where many species exhibit high site-fidelity. The Marine Resources Monitoring Assessment and Prediction Program (MARMAP) operated by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources is a fishery-independent sampling program that targets offshore hard and live-bottom habitat in southeastern United States waters. The chevron trap is the standard gear used by MARMAP to estimate abundance and collect biological specimens for life history studies. These traps however, are not conducive to the collection of diet samples due to bait-gorging. This study investigates an experimental trap design intended to inhibit bait consumption. Prey abundance and diversity, percent frequency of occurrence, percent by number and weight, and index of relative importance were calculated and compared, in order to elucidate how bait-gorging may obfuscate natural feeding behavior and confound estimates of prey composition and selectivity.