Energy Transformations by a Population of Fish in the River Thames

作者：Ken H. Mann · 发表于：Journal of Animal Ecology · 年份：1965 · DOI：10.2307/2650 · 被引用次数：171 · 研究领域：Fish Ecology and Management Studies、Fish Biology and Ecology Studies、Marine and fisheries research

Early investigations of fish populations were primarily concerned with describing the species present, their feeding habits and their rates of growth. With the development of techniques for estimating the sizes of populations, attention became focused on the weight of fish present in a given habitat and interesting comparisons were made between populations and between habitats from this point of view. More recently biologists have come to realize that biomass data alone are not a sufficient basis for predicting the yield of a fishery and efforts have been made to assess rates of production. The interaction between biomass, production and degree of exploitation of populations has proved a fruitful field of study for fishery biologists. From this and related fields of ecological thought it has become clear that a full understanding of the production potential of a population cannot be obtained without a knowledge of its intake of energy and materials as food. A study of the fish of the River Thames at Reading has been in progress since 1958 and has passed through each of the stages mentioned above. The early work was undertaken by Williams (1963, 1965) and this paper attempts to carry his work one stage further by producing an estimate of the energy consumption of the fish populations. In a preliminary account (Mann 1964) the energy transformations by the two most abundant species were calculated very approximately. No attempt was made to estimate the energy requirements of the...