Meiobenthic Copepods: Tracers of Where Juvenile Leiostomus xanthurus (Pisces) Feed?

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Abstract
Simultaneous collections of meiobenthic copepods with cores at three sites along a saltmarsh tidal elevation gradient (subtidal, intertidal, marsh) and of juvenile Leiostumus xanthurus (spot) in an adjacent tidal creek were made every 2 h for 24 h in May 1986 and again in May 1988. Certain copepod species were restricted to specific habitats along the gradient. By comparing the species composition of copepod prey in the spots' foreguts as it changed through time with the distribution of copepod species along the gradient, some copepod species served as markers of where the fish had fed. Species that occupied the high intertidal occurred in fish guts primarily at high tide while subtidal prey species were eaten only at low tide. The most abundant copepod species collected with core samplers, Stenhelia (D.) bifidia, lives too deep in the sediment for the fish to catch and was not eaten in proportion to its abundance. When predators are highly motile and their prey have a restricted areal distribution, it is possible to infer where fish have fed by identifying prey to the species level in both fish stomach contents and the local environment.