Impacts of sample size for stomach content analysis on the estimation of ecosystem indices

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Impacts of sample size for stomach content analysis on the estimation of ecosystem indices Dongyan Han1, 2, Chongliang Zhang1, Ying Xue1, Binduo Xu1, Yiping Ren1, 3*, Yong Chen2, 3 1 College of Fisheries, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China 2 School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469, USA 3 Laboratory for Marine Fisheries Science and Food Production Processes, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine

Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao 266237, China Received 12 December 2019; accepted 8 April 2020 © Chinese Society for Oceanography and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract

This study used Ecopath model of the Jiaozhou Bay as an example to evaluate the effect of stomach sample size of three fish species on the projection of this model. The derived ecosystem indices were classified into three categories: (1) direct indices, like the trophic level of species, influenced by stomach sample size directly; (2) indirect indices, like ecology efficiency (EE) of invertebrates, influenced by the multiple prey-predator relationships; and (3) systemic indices, like total system throughout (TST), describing the status of the whole ecosystem. The influences of different stomach sample sizes on these indices were evaluated. The results suggest that systemic indices of the ecosystem model were robust to stomach sample sizes, whereas specific indices related to species were indicated to be with low accuracy and precision when stomach samples were insufficient. The indices became more uncertain when the stomach sample sizes varied for more species. This study enhances the understanding of how the quality of diet composition data influences ecosystem modeling outputs. The results can also guide the design of stomach content analysis for developing ecosystem models. Key words: computer simulation, Ecopath with Ecosim, ecosystem index, optimization sample size, stomach contents analysis Citation: Han Dongyan, Zhang Chongliang, Xue Ying, Xu Binduo, Ren Yiping, Chen Yong. 2020. Impacts of sample size for stomach content analysis on the estimation of ecosystem indices. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 39(8): 53–61, doi: 10.1007/s13131-020-1633-x

1  Introduction An increasing consideration of interactions among different components in the whole ecosystem, has prompted the call to develop ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) (Plagányi, 2007). Instead of focusing solely on an individual component of an ecosystem (like single species approach fishery management), EBFM defines fisheries management portfolios for entire ecosystem (Ainsworth et al., 2010), which greatly promoted the development of ecosystem models. Various models have been developed, like Atlantis ecosystem model (ATLANTIS; Fulton et al., 2004), Ecopath with Ecosim (Christensen and Walters, 2004), and Object-oriented Simulator of Marine ecOSystem Exploitation (OSMOSE; Shin and Cury, 2001). These ecosystem models provide an overview of the ecosystem and even serve as operating models to represent the “real wor