Khalid William M. Farnar*(1)
(1). Department of Marine Vertebrate, Marine Science Center, University of Basrah, Iraq.
(*Corresponding author: Khalid William M. Farnar. E-Mail: khaled_msc62@yahoo.com).
Received: 16/07/2020 Accepted: 11/08/2020
Abstract
Sardines fishes (Sardinella longiceps) were brought from the Iraqi regional marine waters, Basra, during March and April 2019, to study the natural food selectivity using Manly`s ά index to determine the natural food selectivity, and food ingredients percentage, besides fullness index. Fish samples were transported to the laboratory using a container of cork after adding crushed ice to reduce food losing during transporting, where the average of total length was 16.2, 17.7 cm and the weight average valued 26.586 and 29.934 grams during March and April respectively. The results showed that the stomach fullness index attained 55 and 85% of all samples and fullness index reached 40.39 and 62.77 during March and April respectively. The percentages of nutritional components inside the stomach were as follow: animal`s remains 36%, crustacean`s remains 27%, fish`s residues 12%, phytoplankton and diatoms 17% and other digested materials 8% during March, while in April the values were as follow: zooplankton 33%, crustacean`s remains 18%, fish`s residues 10%, phytoplankton and diatoms 28% and other digested materials 11%. The results showed that the food of the fishes from an animal`s origin was the prevailing food in the stomachs with an average of 0.25363, 0.21035 and 0.19804 of zooplankton, fish`s residues and crustacean`s remains from the total food during the study respectively .
Keywords: Sardines fishes, Food selectivity, Crustacean`s remains, Marine waters, Iraq.
Full paper in Arabic: PDF