• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.275-287
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• 2013

The Japanese anchovy Engraulis japonicus is a widespread species in the western North Pacific and major fishery resource. To understand the spatio-temporal variation of anchovy prey items in the coastal waters of southern Korea, the stomach contents of anchovy and the structure of the zooplankton community were analysed at three sites (Jindo, Yeosu and Tong-yeong) from July 2011 to February 2012. The main prey items in Yeosu and Jindo were cyprid stage of barnacle (>35%) and copepod Calanus sinicus (>22%) in July, respectively, while, predominant ones in Tongyeong were small copepods, Paracalanus parvus s.l. (41%) and Corycaeus affinis (22%). During this period, the dominant zooplankton were cladoceran Evadne tergestina (39%) in Yeosu, small copepod, P. parvus s.l. (28%) in Jindo and cladoceran E. tergestina (14%) in Tongyeong. The dominant prey items were barnacle larvae and copepods in summer, phytoplankton and Pseudodiaptomus marinus in autumn and P. parvus s.l. and cold water copepod, Centropages abdominalis in winter. Anchovy prefer the prey item C. sinicus (3%) over E. tergestina (39%), which was a dominant species in the catching site in summer. P. marinus (0.5%) and C. abdominalis (0.9%) were preferred over P. parvus s.l. (30%, 21%) in autumn and winter, respectively. Prey items varied with area and season in the coastal waters of southern Korea. These results suggest that the prey selectivity of anchovy showed high flexibility and adaptability in the study waters.