Benthic Feeding and Diet Partitioning in Red Sea Mesopelagic Fish Resolved Through DNA Metabarcoding and ROV Footage.

Mesopelagic fish are among the most abundant vertebrates on Earth and play a crucial role in carbon sequestration through their daily vertical migration. However, their dietary ecology remains poorly understood, especially in the Red Sea, limiting our grasp of their trophic interactions and ecological roles. This study investigates the dietary composition of two common mesopelagic fish species in the Red Sea, the lanternfish ( taxa) and the endemic lightfish (), using DNA metabarcoding of the mitochondrial COI marker, supplemented by remotely operated vehicle (ROV) video observations.

Deep oxygen-depleted depressions in a Red Sea coral reef sustain resistant ecosystems.

Persistent oxygen-depleted zones in the ocean are known primarily from enclosed basins in temperate regions or the open ocean (including oxygen minimum and limiting zones) (1). However, little is known about the possibility of such zones forming in tropical coastal domains, even though the combination of warmer temperatures and complex geological features in some tropical regions makes their occurrence more likely (1, 2). Here, we report two subsurface oxygen-depleted zones within deep (>490 m) depressions of the Red Sea's Difaht Farasan-a carbonate platform hosting the world's third largest contiguous tropical coral reef system.

Identification of hub genes in digestive system of mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi) fed with artificial diet by weighted gene co-expression network analysis.

Mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi) is a carnivorous freshwater fish and an economically important species. The digestive system (liver, stomach, intestine, pyloric caecum, esophagus, and gallbladder) is an important site for studying fish domestication. In our previous study, we found that mandarin fish undergoes adaptive changes in histological morphology and gene expression levels of the digestive system when subjected to artificial diet domestication.