Investigating the nutritional relationship of Dasyatidae species with benthic macroinvertebrates in the fishing areas of the waters of Hormozgan province

The present study was conducted in order to obtain the necessary information on the diversity, abundance and distribution of macroinvertebrates, as well as to investigate the grazing status of batoid fishes (stingrays) from benthic macroinvertebrtes in coastal waters of Hormozgan province. For this purpose, sampling was done in the years 2017 and 2018 and once every year in the autumn season. At the end of the identification process, a number of 125 genus and 104 species belonging to 85 families, 31 classes, 9 orders, and 7 phyla were successfully identified. Results revealed that Malacostraca was the frequent order in the studied area. In order to investigate the possible relationship between composition and abundance of benthic macroinvertebrte and stingrays, CCA analysis was employed. Results of stomach content of stingrays revealed that in the diet of M. randall, crustacean (93.25 %IRI) has the highest amount. This pattern was the same for M. gerrardi and H. walga. However, in M. gerrardi, bivalvia were in the first place of importance (31.33 %IRI). Also, trophic level analysis was done for three species which shows all species are Mesopredators that place in the same level of food web. According to the mentioned cases, some benthic macroinvertebrates identified in this research have a significant  relationship with the benthic fishes, which requires more studies to investigate their relationship.