Community dynamics of tropical reef fishes:local patterns between latitudes

Abstract

Latitudinal variation in the dynamics of biological communities is among the least addressed and understood topics of modern ecology. Here, I examine the dynamics of coral-reef fish communities inhabiting small rubble patches at 2 locations separated by approximately 9" of latitude (One Tree Island and Lizard Island) on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. This sampling program ran simultaneously at the 2 locations using identical census methods, sampled over 16 mo and included 2 summer recruitment seasons. Total abundance of all fish species pooled fluctuated seasonally, peaking in summer Total abundance at sites wlthin locations differed, but sites at different locations overlapped In abundance. The dynamics of these communities were apparently unrelated to family membership among species, intraspeciflc abundances or diet. Rank abundances of species present at both locations did not differ, and only a slngle negative correlation of abundances between specles was detected. Changes in abundance, however, were density dependent. Maximum abundance of fishes observed in the first summer explained between 42 and 93% of the variation in subsequent per capita declines in abundance by the following winter and before recruitment had commenced in the second year. These density-dependent effects were observed across families and across widely separated locations. These results suggest that the dynamics of these communities were not structured by strong pairwise interspecific interactions, but, instead, may have been structured by some density-dependent process(es) that affected a broad cross sectlon of species and that operated irrespective of locality.

Reef fish assemblages: a re-evaluation using enclosed rotenone stations

“…Sale et al 1994, Caley 1995, Bellwood 1996, the rotenone collections indicate that a significant proportion of the assemblage was not recorded. These taxa came in 2 forms: those that were censused, but underrepresented, such as the Gobiidae, and those that were missed altogether, such as the Bythitidae, Syngnathidae, Antennariidae, and Aploactinidae.…”

“…Reef fish assemblages are amongst the most diverse vertebrate assemblages in the world (Choat & Bellwood 1991, Caley 1995. Hundreds of species varying in size, shape and colour can often be found within a relatively small area (Bell & Galzin 1984, Parrish et al 1986).…”

Influence of latitude, water depth, dayv.night and wetv.dry periods on the species composition of reef fish communities in tropical Western Australia

“…Moreover, the use of trawling has yielded sound data for the community structure of the fish faunas in offshore waters along the north-western coastline of Australia where reefs are not present (Sainsbury, 1987;Sainsbury et al, 1993;Williams et al, 2001). Some studies have compared the diversity, densities and compositions of the reef fish faunas in different tropical regions, based on the collection of their own data (Williams, 1983;Roberts et al, 1992;Caley, 1995;Meekan & Choat, 1997;Munday, 2002;DeMartini & Friedlander, 2004;Bouchon-Navaro et al, 2005) or on the collation of data obtained during various studies (Floeter & Gasparini, 2000;Bellwood & Hughes, 2001;Floeter et al, 2001Floeter et al, , 2004Harmelin-Vivien, 2002;Ferreira et al, 2004). No study, however, has investigated the ways in which the characteristics of the fish faunas over reefs vary at intervals along an extensive and continuous tropical coastline that encompasses a wide latitudinal range.…”

Comparative efficiency of clove oil and rotenone for sampling tropical reef fish assemblages

“…Studies of reef fish assemblages have relied heavily upon visual census techniques (Caley, 1995;Sano, 2000;Syms & Jones, 2000). They refer, however, to only a subset of the total assemblage, in that small and cryptic taxa are often largely overlooked (Kulbicki, 1990;Munday & Jones, 1998).…”