Short communication: A study of food consumption of the deepwater Goby, Ponticola bathybius (Kessler, 1877), during spring migration in the southern Caspian Sea

Abstract

The Gobies exhibit a main role in the general production of the Caspian Sea due to their species diversity and unexploited stocks. So, of the 80 fish species known from Iranian part of the Caspian Sea, 10 of them are gobies (Abdoli et al., 2012). The deepwater goby, Ponticola bathybius (Kessler, 1877), Gobiidae, is a native species in the Caspian Sea which settles on sandy and shelly substrates and, in a few numbers, on firm silt down to 75 meters (Miller, 2003). The presence of predators such as Acipenseridae and prey items as Clupeonella sp. could be effective in the abundance of gobies (Kalantarian et al., 2013). Gobies fishes are known as the great consumers of food resources and the considerable competitors for other species (Corkum et al., 2004). According to Miller (2003), fish are as dominant prey for larger specimens of P.