EAPSI: Diet description and feeding group assignment of nearshore marine fishes (blennies) in Taiwan

Blennies are small marine fishes (400 species), commonly found in tropical reefs. Most blennies are food specialists feeding on detritus (decomposing material), algae, pieces of other fishes, or invertebrates. Blennies have higher speciation rates (process of new species arising) than other fishes and this may be driven by diet specialization accompanied by evolution of structures such as jaws and teeth. Unfortunately the diet of many blennies is poorly described, and in some species, completely unknown. This research will provide a description of diet and feeding group assignment of blennies from Taiwan. This is part of a larger study examining the correlation between diet and feeding structures and the evolutionary relationships of blennies. This study will be conducted at National Chiayi University, in collaboration with Dr. Chien-Hsien Kuo, a fish biology expert. Taiwan is an ideal setting due to the high diversity of blenny species.

The diet of blennies is poorly known but critical to an understanding of the evolution of trophic morphology. This study will collect 66 blenny species from subtidal, intertidal and supralittoral habitats in Taiwan. Dissection and gut content analysis will be conducted. Cluster analysis methods will be used to test for similarities among diet between species and test the following hypotheses: 1) co-occurring blenny species exhibit significant overlap in diet, 2) diet is species specific, regardless of community structure, i.e. species occurring in multiple sub-habitats will not exhibit significant variation in diet. Results of this diet study will provide the first description of diet for some blenny species and add previously described diets. Ultimately, diet data will be used in conjunction with morphological and molecular data to test hypotheses about evolution of diet and feeding morphologies of blennies. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the National Science Council of Taiwan.