Kb. Clifton et Pj. Motta, Feeding morphology, diet, and ecomorphological relationships among five Caribbean labrids (Teleostei, Labridae), COPEIA, (4), 1998, pp. 953-966
The ecomorphological relationship between oral and pharyngeal jaw morpholog
y and diet was investigated for five labrids: Lachnolaimus maximus, Halicho
eres garnoti, H. bivittatus, H, maculipinna, and Thalassoma bifasciatum. Th
e goals were to examine the following: (I) the relationship between diet an
d oral and pharyngeal jaw morphology; and (2) the influence of feeding beha
vior on diet. Twelve morphological measurements reflecting aspects of feedi
ng ability were made. Interspecific differences in dentition were described
. Principal components analysis (PCA) explained 96% of the variance among m
orphological variables with the first two PCs. Principal component I accoun
ted for 92.2% of the variance, separating species by body size, whereas PC2
(3.8% of variance) separated species by oral jaw shape and degree of protr
usibility, Twenty-six prey categories were identified. Canonical correspond
ence analysis (CCA) revealed that only 4.7% of the variation in diet was at
tributable to morphological variables, indicating a low correlation between
oral and pharyngeal jaw characters and diet. However, variables that measu
red some aspect of performance were good predictors of diet. The proportion
of hard prey consumed was correlated to the estimates of biting force for
each species, Species with stronger pharyngeal jaw musculature consumed lar
ger amounts of hard prey than those with lesser force generating ability. F
eeding behaviors, classified as suction feeding, winnowing, or biting, corr
esponded to oral jaw morphology, Species with less protrusible jaws were fo
und to bite their prey, and species with more protrusible jaws picked items
out of the water column or winnowed on the substrate.