Urophycis chuss (Walbaum, 1792)

Falke, Landon P., Smith, Brian E., Rowe, Stacy, Peters, Rebecca J. & Sheehan, Timothy F., 2025, Trophic ecology of groundfishes in nearshore areas of the Gulf of Maine, Journal of Fish Biology 106 (4), pp. 1095-1111 : 1102

3.3.2 | U. chuss

Stomach contents of U. chuss consisted mostly of shrimp (pandalids, crangonids, and unclassified shrimps), polychaetes, and euphausiids (Figure 3; Table S3). The relatively small contribution of piscine prey in U. chuss diets consisted mostly of M. bilinearis and unclassified fishes. Variation in U. chuss diet composition was mostly explained by depth (DF = 1, 42; F = 2.27; p <0.001) and season (DF = 1, 42; F = 1.88; p = 0.015), representing the order of explanatory variables in the final CCA model (DF = 2, 42; F = 2.07; p <0.001). The final model explained 9.0% of variation in diet composition, with the first and second CCA axes representing 5.0% and 4.0%, respectively (Figure 5b). Diets of U. chuss included relatively more (tow-level proportional mass) euphausiids in the spring and more crangonids in the fall (Table S4). With increasing depth, U. chuss consumed more euphausiids and P. borealis and less crangonids (Figure S14). Consumption of crangonids was positively correlated with bottom temperature, whereas consumption of euphausiids was negatively correlated with temperature (Figure S14). Correlations by longitude included decreases in consumption of M. bilinearis and unclassified teleosts from west to east (Figure S14). The relative consumption of P. borealis in U. chuss diets was negatively correlated with year (Figure S14).