Diet Composition of Young-of-the-Year Bluefish in the Lower Chesapeake Bay and the Coastal Ocean of Virginia

The lower Chesapeake Bay and coastal ocean of Virginia serve as an important nursery area for bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix. Describing the diet composition of young-of-the-year (hereafter, age-0) bluefish in this region is essential to support current Chesapeake Bay ecosystem modeling efforts and to contribute to the understanding of the foraging ecology of these fish along the U.S. Atlantic coast. The stomach contents of 404 age-0 bluefish collected from the lower Chesapeake Bay and adjacent coastal zone in 1999 and 2000 were examined as part of a diet composition study. Age-0 bluefish foraged primarily on bay anchovies Anchoa mitchilli, striped anchovies Anchoa hepsetus, and Atlantic silversides Menidia menidia. Other fishes such as striped bass Morone saxatilis, white perch Morone americana, Atlantic menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus, and bluefish were seasonally important. Crab zoea and megalope Callinectes spp. and amphipods Gammarus spp. were the most important invertebrate prey. A seasonal dietary shift from Atlantic silversides to anchovies was evident. Overall, small pelagic and littoral schooling fishes, particularly engraulids and atherinids, predominated in the diet of the age-0 bluefish collected for this study. Although the results presented here were similar to the diet composition of age-0 bluefish reported in previous studies, some notable differences were probably due to spatial and temporal differences in prey assemblages.