The Importance of Estuarine Production of Large Prey for the Growth of Juvenile Temperate Seabass (Lateolabrax japonicus)

The feeding ecology of juvenile temperate seabass (Lateolabrax japonicus) in relation to various prey environments was analyzed in the Yura River estuary from 2008 to 2012. Juveniles mainly fed on copepods and mysids, both in the Yura River estuary and in the adjacent coastal area. The dependency on the mysids increased as juveniles grew from 15 to 25 mm standard length (SL), and the main stomach contents were mysids for juveniles larger than 25 mm SL. The maximum size of food contents increased from 2 to 15 mm with the growth of juveniles from 15 to 25 mm SL. Most prey items smaller and larger than 2 mm were composed of copepods and mysids, respectively. The mean size of ingested food items increased with the size of the juveniles, while the mean number of prey items in each stomach decreased with growth after juveniles reached 22 mm SL. As a result, the stomach content index increased with the size of juveniles. These results indicate that the shift to larger-sized prey items (from copepods to mysids) is important for juveniles to obtain energy efficiently. Mysids were larger and more abundant in the estuaries than those in the coastal area. Therefore, the estuary provided better foraging conditions to juvenile temperate seabass than the coastal area.