Trophic ecology of the deep-sea squid Moroteuthopsis ingens (Cephalopoda: Onychoteuthidae) from the Chatham Rise, Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Cephalopods form important components of marine trophic systems worldwide, including those in the South Pacific. Moroteuthopsis ingens (Onychoteuthidae) is one of the most abundant deep–sea squids in the Aotearoa New Zealand region and is preyed upon by predators such as the sperm whale and orange roughy. However, despite the many publications on M. ingens’ diet, knowledge on its feeding ecology remains limited. In this study, we analysed the prey of M. ingens from the Chatham Rise (an ecologically and economically important region east of Te Waipounamu/New Zealand’s South Island) using DNA barcoding and otolith identification. Lanternfishes (Myctophidae) were the most frequently encountered prey item, but other teleost species, cephalopods and crustacean fragments were also found, indicating opportunistic and likely cannibalistic feeding behaviour. Five fish species (including a possibly undescribed species of Gymnoscopelus) and Bathyteuthis abyssicola are reported as prey items of M. ingens for the first time. Moroteuthopsis ingens appears to be a component of several dynamic food chains and likely plays an important role in the transfer of carbon throughout marine environments in the Southern Hemisphere.

KEYWORDS:

• Cephalopods
• onychoteuthidae
• myctophids
• bathyteuthis
• otoliths
• DNA barcoding
• gymnoscopelus

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Dr. Per Palsbøll, Jerusha Bennett, Dr. Alexandra Lischka, the ALCES team and our two reviewers for the comments they provided, to Sadie Mills and Diana Macpherson at NIWA for their support during on–site dissections, to Ryan Howard for collecting our 2020 samples and stomachs, and to the crew members aboard RV Tangaroa from voyages TAN1601 and TAN2001.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support for this study was provided by the Marco Polo Grant and the Groningen University Fund from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the National Institute for Water & Atmospheric Research, Ltd, and Auckland University of Technology.