Feeding habits of some young of the year Sparidae species in Dardanelles

The main objective of this study was to determine the feeding habits of young individuals of gilthead bream Sparus aurata, common two banded sea bream Diplodus vulgaris, sharpsnout sea bream Diplodus puntazzo and spanish bream Pagellus acarne in the Dardanelles Strait. Samplings were performed a beach seine in 3 different station (Abide, Güzelyalı and Kerevizdere bays), at shallow water depth between 0-2 m, between 2008 October and 2009 Augusut, in the Dardannelles Strait.Young gilthead bream individuals, fed mainly with crustacea (%IRI=95.1), foraminifera (%IRI=2.4) and annalida (%IRI=1.03). It has been determined that the seasonal feeding was significantly different from each other (R=0.2445, P< 0.05). It has been detected that, this difference arised substantially from copepoda (Contrubition=40,3) and amphipoda (Contrubition= 20.2). Diet composition of young common two banded sea bream individuals was determined as crustacea (%IRI=82.7), annelida (%IRI=8.11) and mollusca (%IRI=3.62. Copepoda (Contrubition=53.13) was the most prefered food item in winter where as in the other seasons amphipoda (Contrubition=9.59) and foraminifera (Contrubition=7.31) were the most prefered food items which presented the seaosonal variation (R= 0.1482; P< 0.05). Crustacea was the main item (%IRI=97.6) in the food choice of young sharpsnout sea bream. Within the crustacea class, amphipoda (%IRI=46.46) and copepoda (%IRI=43.5) were the most frequently consumed diets. Differences of diet composition between seasons were evident (R= 0.8328, P<0.05). Crustacea (%IRI=83.34) was the main food source of the young spanish bream and copepoda (%IRI=83.33) were the dominant ordo within the crustacea class.Keywords: Sparidae, Feding Habits, Dardanelles, Juvenile, Young individual