Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus stoichiometry in Japanese anchovy ( Engraulis japonicus ) from the Huanghai Sea, China
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Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus stoichiometry in Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus) from the Huanghai Sea, China HUANG Liang1,2∗ , WU Ying3 , WAN Ruijing4 , ZHANG Jing3 1
2 3
4
College of Resources and Environment Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang 332005, China State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Received 5 March 2011; accepted 21 September 2011 ©The Chinese Society of Oceanography and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
Abstract Generally, nutrient cycle is closely related to the element distribution in biomass and the population dynamics in ecosystems. Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus) of different body lengths from the Huanghai Sea (Yellow Sea) were determined to better understand their variability and reasons during its life history. The mean content was 45.12%, 10.12% and 2.02% for C, N and P, respectively. Significant differences in C, N and P elemental composition were found among different sizes, which could be explained by varying proportions of storage compounds in whole body fish, and varying degrees of ossification. Considering abundant resources in Japanese anchovy, it was an important P-pool in the cycle of P. Moreover, the excreted N/P ratio was significantly different in fishes of different sizes, especially at high gross growth efficiency. In the past two decades, overexploitation tended to cause smaller body length in the community structure of anchovy, which presumably changed the nutrient cycle in food webs of the Huanghai Sea. Exptrapolation of the results indicates that Japanese anchovy may be important for conveying nutrient in the Huanghai Sea. Key words: Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus), nutrient elements, the Huanghai Sea
necessary to study the stoichiometry of key species in aquatic ecosystem all through lifetime. Two major affecting factors for invertebrates’ stoichiometry are growth rate and diet. For example, Hessen (1990) found that juveniles Daphnia magna had more body P than adults, probably due to the high growth rate experienced by small bodied organisms (Elser et al., 1996). Diet might also importantly affect the organism’s body composition. For example, DeMott et al. (1998, 2004) discovered that P deficient diets can affect growth rate and body P content of daphniids. In vertebrates such as fish, body elemental changes may be particularly important due to bone formation during larval-juvenile developmental stage. More P was used for bone formation during vertebr-
1 Introduction Stoichiometric model is a very important tool in ecology, which is applied in many areas, such as food-web nutrient recycling (Sterner, 1990; Elser and Urabe, 1999), food-web dynamics (Sterner et al., 1997, 1998), and trophic interactions (Markow et al., 1999). It is ever hypothesized that b
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