Meeting Abstract
In 2017, Striped Bass were found for the first time along the coast of Labrador, Canada. The presence of Striped Bass in Labrador can potentially affect local fisheries because it is a piscivorous predatory fish. Striped Bass may feed on commercially fished and ‘at-risk’ species such as Atlantic Salmon, Salmo salar, Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus, Cod, Gadus morhua, and Capelin, Mallotus villosus. Our objective was to use traditional and molecular tools to identify and quantify Striped Bass diets. Three methods of diet analysis were chosen for this study: traditional analysis (TA) through dissecting stomachs and counting identifiable prey using morphological methods or examination of otoliths, molecular analysis (MA) whereby gastric DNA was used to identify prey to species, and stable isotope analysis (SIA), which was used primarily to identify diet trophic level. In general, TA identifies prey within a few days of being eaten, whereas MA widens this window to perhaps a week. SIA provides a diet indicator on a local trophic level perhaps reflecting several weeks. Stripe Bass carcasses were collected from recreational anglers, and from commercial fisher bycatch. The current focus is to develop the MA method. MA uses quantitative PCR to identify target species and provide a proportion of different prey species in the overall diet. The method relies on species-specific primers targeting conserved genes in suspected prey. Using various diet analysis methods may provide a more reliable and robust picture of these large predators.
