Maine Striped Bass Foraging Ecology Study
#GOTGUTS?
Project Information
A University of Maine research team is conducting the first ever scientific assessment of striped bass diet in Gulf of Maine waters. While striped bass diet has been well documented in southern waters along the U.S. Atlantic coast, there has never been a comprehensive study of what they are eating in the Gulf of Maine. This project seeks to understand how striped bass diet varies across fish size, age, sex, location, and season.
Why is this Important?
Foraging ecology studies help scientists understand the flow of energy throughout various food webs in Maine coastal ecosystems. Understanding how striped bass feed (seasonally and spatially) will allow us to make important trophic connections between the predator, their prey species, and overall ecosystem health. Striped bass are a highly migratory species, and we are very interested in how their foraging habits and protein/lipid accumulation shift seasonally and along the coast. This research will help fisheries managers make informed decisions that best support the conservation of the striped bass populations and their prey in Maine. We know how valued striped bass are ecologically, recreationally, and culturally in Maine. With your help, we can perform important research to contribute to their conservation and management efforts! Our research team will be partnering with the Maine recreational fishing industry and the public to gain striped bass samples in different rivers.
How Can You Help?
Charter Boat Captains
Can help by taking two trained field technicians out on a striped bass charter trip to collect stomach samples non-lethally (via stomach flushing). Please reach out to the project lead, Abby Remick (401-651-1034), for more information if you are willing to take us out with you!
Recreational Anglers
Can help by catching a legal sized striped bass and donate your fileted racks with the stomach and other organs! Dropoff locations are listed below and range from southern Maine to Midcoast.
**If you want to deepen your involvement with participating in the study, please reach out to us via phone or email for further information/questions on this process. **
Instructions to donate a striped bass:
1) Catch a legal sized striped bass
2)Locate a local partner drop off location (see options below) OR contact Abby Remick and she can help advise where to bring the fish
3) Put fish in plastic bag, keep on ice and/or freeze at nearby partner location
4) Label bags with date and location caught (all materials provided @ partner spot)
5) Drop off at selected partner location and we will come pick it up!
If you don’t want to save the whole rack, put the stomach in a plastic ziplock bag and label the outside with date, location, length, sex (if known).
Our Partners:
Racks and samples can be dropped off at the following locations:
What do the different organs tell us?
Tell us what the fish ate in the last 24 hours! In the lab we dissect the stomach and sort through the guts to try and identify the different organisms in the fish’s stomach.
The muscle tissue can be evaluated with stable isotope molecular tools to tell us what the fish ate over the last several months. This includes information like where the fish has been feeding (on the ocean floor or in more pelagic waters) and where the fish exists in the trophic food web. This analysis is kind of like ecological C.S.I. work! (see figure below for where we take the muscle sample)
Inside of a fish’s head are their otoliths which are the ear bones of a fish. By removing and analyzing the otoliths, we can determine the age of the fish with multiple methods.
We can look at the fish’s gonads in the lab which can tell us whether the fish is a male or female and the spawning status (immature or ripe and running).
We also collect important prey species to striped bass and use energetic content analysis to determine how much energy a particular prey species provides to the predator. It can also tell us how different prey species vary in their energetic content seasonally and spatially.
All together, these striped bass samples and their prey can help us understand what prey species are supporting striped bass population growth and distribution and help further conservation efforts for this species!
Any Questions?
Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions about the study or how you can participate!
Abby Remick (401) 651-1034, abrielle.remick@maine.edu
Michelle Staudinger (631) 664-7004, michelle.staudinger@maine.edu