Food organisms and feeding habits of larval and juvenile Japanese flounder Paralichthys olivaceus at Ohama Beach in Hiuchi-Nada, the central Seto Inland Sea, Japan

ABSTRACT:   The abundance of food organisms and feeding habits of larval and juvenile Japanese flounder were examined during the period from May to August in 1999, 2000 and 2001 at the sandy Ohama beach, the central Seto Inland Sea. The food organisms collected with a sledge net consisted of 40 families from 18 orders, dominated by mysids, crangonids and gammarids. The mean densities of mysids, crangonid shrimp ( Crangon spp.), gammarids and fish were 2.74, 6.74, 2.91 and 0.15 individuals/m², respectively. The main prey of the flounder ( n  = 202; range of total length 9.80–75.95 mm) was mysids and small crangonid shrimp (<14 mm in body length). Prey fish availability was low, as the density of fish was low. The small crangonid shrimp was abundant, and the large crangonid shrimp, which could prey on larval flounder, was not abundant. The crangonid shrimp was important not as a predator for the flounder but as prey. The flounder preferred epifaunal mysids, Nipponomysis ornata and Anisomysis ijimai , to sand-burrowing mysids, Iiella oshimai , and avoided crangonid shrimp.     

The nutrient status of the agriculturally impacted Gamtoos Estuary,South Africa,with special reference to the river‐estuarine interface region (REI)

• 1. Ecological water reserves are part of the new water management philosophy in South Africa. The estuaries are threatened by excessive water abstraction from their rivers and the consequent reduction in freshwater input. This study was conducted to further improve our understanding of freshwater requirements in terms of nutrients for South African estuaries.
• 2. The Gamtoos Estuary was sampled between November 1996 and November 1998 to determine its nutrient status and freshwater input rates. Furthermore, the possible existence of a distinct river‐estuarine interface (REI) in terms of nutrients has been investigated. Nutrients analysed included phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), particulate organic nitrogen (PON) as Kjieldahl nitrogen, total particulate phosphorus and total particulate carbon.
• 3. The Gamtoos River was found not to be the ultimate source of nutrients to the estuary, but non‐point sources such as the seepage of fertilisers from adjacent agricultural fields determined to a great extent the nutrient status of the estuary.
• 4. Results showed that it was not possible to identify a defined river‐estuarine interface region for all nutrients. Most were measured in higher concentrations in the lower salinity reaches (<17‰) where we observed the combined effect of inputs from the Gamtoos River, an agricultural drainage pipe, and fertilizer seepage from non‐point sources on nutrient concentration.
• 5. Prolonged water withdrawal for human use impacts the continuous renewal of the nutrient pool so important to other South African estuaries with relative pristine catchment areas. However, reduced fresh water inputs could enhance eutrophication in polluted estuaries due to a decreased flushing potential of the estuary. In this case the Gamtoos Estuary has a freshwater requirement for freshets and floods to “clean” the estuary of accumulated nutrients and other organic material.
• 6. This should be a consideration in further freshwater abstraction policies. Conservation issues arise since the Gamtoos Estuary is one of the few permanently open estuaries along the South African coast and serve in this study as an example and as a first attempt to relate freshwater requirements to nutrient dynamics in a South African context.

Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.