Poster Presentation Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting 2023

A Chain Reaction - Dietary Shifts of an Apex Predator, the Tiger Shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), Along the Eastern Coast of Australia (#399)

Alexandra Ikpe 1 , Alexis Levengood 1 , Paul Butcher 2 , Johan Gustafson 3 , Christofer Clemente 1 , Bonnie Holmes 1
  1. School of Science, Technology and Engineering , The University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Queensland, Australia
  2. Fisheries, Department of Primary Industries, New South Wales, Australia
  3. Centre for Coastal and Marine Research, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Tiger sharks are generalist predators that exert top-down control over marine communities. They are valuable indicators for the state of our oceans, particularly the linkage of communities from northern Queensland to southern New South Wales. Identifying characteristics of QLD and NSW waters, used as a proxy for health and environmental change, can be done through analysis of tiger shark diets. Stomach content analysis (SCA) shows consumption of everything from sea snakes to car tires, and literature provides evidence of bioregional variation in diet between QLD and NSW. With warming ocean temperatures facilitating year-round residence of tiger sharks in NSW waters, historic bioregional trophic webs are changing. Direct and indirect influence will shift community assemblages, abundance, and diversity with an unknown impact for both tiger sharks and prey species. Using video cameras fitted on state-of-the-art tags, SCA, and cloacal swabs (genetic metabarcoding), prey species will be categorized temporally and spatially providing data on prey consumption to a finer scale and facilitating predictions on how tiger shark movement is influenced by their prey and potential ecosystem shifts. As oceanic changes continue, understanding a key species’ diet and the flow on affects is critical for fisheries, shark control, and broader ocean systems management.