Temporal and spatial trends in prey composition of wahoo Acanthocybium solandri: a diet analysis from the central North Pacific Ocean using visual and DNA bar‐coding techniques

A diet analysis was conducted on 444 wahoo Acanthocybium solandri caught in the central North Pacific Ocean longline fishery and a nearshore troll fishery surrounding the Hawaiian Islands from June to December 2014. In addition to traditional observational methods of stomach contents, a DNA bar‐coding approach was integrated into the analysis by sequencing the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) region of the mtDNA genome to taxonomically identify individual prey items that could not be classified visually to species. For nearshore‐caught A. solandri, juvenile pre‐settlement reef fish species from various families dominated the prey composition during the summer months, followed primarily by Carangidae in autumn months. Gempylidae, Echeneidae and Scombridae were dominant prey taxa from the offshore fishery. Molidae was a common prey family found in stomachs collected north‐east of the Hawaiian Archipelago while tetraodontiform reef fishes, known to have extended pelagic stages, were prominent prey items south‐west of the Hawaiian Islands. The diet composition of A. solandri was indicative of an adaptive feeder and thus revealed dominant geographic and seasonal abundances of certain taxa from various ecosystems in the marine environment. The addition of molecular bar‐coding to the traditional visual method of prey identifications allowed for a more comprehensive range of the prey field of A. solandri to be identified and should be used as a standard component in future diet studies.