Comments on trophic studies of marine fish in the historical process of fisheries science and ecological modelling

Abstract

Overviews of specific knowledge areas placed in the history of the disciplines are rare in the scope of marine sciences. This work aims to describe the importance of trophic studies of marine fish in a chronological context, with comments on the main advances in this area in relation to the historical process of ecology and fisheries science. Through a retrospective critical analysis, this paper briefly shows the evolution of trophic studies of fish from the pioneer feeding studies of the XIX century to modern multispecies models based on trophic aspects. It can be noted how methodological evolution in this area can be seen through a historical context where research is insert, and its scientific paradigm. A chronological overview of different aspects of trophic studies of marine fish, such as feeding, food webs, selectivity, food consumption and rates, and the introduction of trophic parameters in fisheries stock assessment and ecosystem modeling are presented here, considering also Brazilian investigations.