ArticleScientific reports2016
DNA barcoding identifies a cosmopolitan diet in the ocean sunfish.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- How quantitative is metabarcoding: A meta-analytical approach.Molecular ecology · 2019Pooled it
- Functional morphology of the pharyngeal teeth of the ocean sunfish, Mola mola.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Does Ocean SunfishMarine drugs · 2022Article
- Effectiveness of blocking primers and a peptide nucleic acid (PNA) clamp for 18S metabarcoding dietary analysis of herbivorous fish.PloS one · 2022Article
- Secondary predation constrains DNA-based diet reconstruction in two threatened shark species.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- High-throughput sequencing outperforms traditional morphological methods in Blue Catfish diet analysis and reveals novel insights into diet ecology.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Fish as predators and prey: DNA-based assessment of their role in food webs.Journal of fish biology · 2021Review
- Discovery of a colossal slickhead (Alepocephaliformes: Alepocephalidae): an active-swimming top predator in the deep waters of Suruga Bay, Japan.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- New Parasite Records for the SunfishFrontiers in veterinary science · 2020Article
- Diet assessment of two land planarian species using high-throughput sequencing data.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Metabarcoding for stomach-content analyses of Pygmy devil ray (Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- When to use next generation sequencing or diagnostic PCR in diet analyses.Molecular ecology resources · 2019Article
- Preliminary analysis of New Zealand scampi (PeerJ · 2018Article
- Jellyfish on the menu: mtDNA assay reveals scyphozoan predation in the Irish Sea.Royal Society open science · 2017Article
- New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Diet Composition and Variability of WildFrontiers in physiology · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The ocean sunfish (Mola mola) is the world's heaviest bony fish reaching a body mass of up to 2.3 tonnes. However, the prey M. mola consumes to fuel this prodigious growth remains poorly known. Sunfish were thought to be obligate gelatinous plankton feeders, but recent studies suggest a more generalist diet. In this study, through molecular barcoding and for the first time, the diet of sunfish in the north-east Atlantic Ocean was characterised. Overall, DNA from the diet content of 57 individuals was successfully amplified, identifying 41 different prey items. Sunfish fed mainly on crustaceans and teleosts, with cnidarians comprising only 16% of the consumed prey. Although no adult fishes were sampled, we found evidence for an ontogenetic shift in the diet, with smaller individuals feeding mainly on small crustaceans and teleost fish, whereas the diet of larger fish included more cnidarian species. Our results confirm that smaller sunfish feed predominantly on benthic and on coastal pelagic species, whereas larger fish depend on pelagic prey. Therefore, sunfish is a generalist predator with a greater diversity of links in coastal food webs than previously realised. Its removal as fisheries' bycatch may have wider reaching ecological consequences, potentially disrupting coastal trophic interactions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.