Fishes that rule the world: circumtropical distributions revisited

Abstract

Briggs (1960) published the first checklist of circumtropical fishes with 107 species. This work served for a half century as the most comprehensive checklist of globally distributed fishes, but the intervening years witnessed many discoveries, and molecular data have changed the way we evaluate species. Here, we update the list guided by taxonomic revisions, phylogenies, phylogeographic data and DNA barcodes. The resulting list now includes 284 species. The dramatic increase is primarily due to two trends: (i) continued oceanic exploration leading to range revisions and species discoveries and (ii) public databases such as FishBase and the Catalogue of Fishes make range data more accessible. Five species were removed from the list as closer scrutiny revealed multiple taxa, 14 were removed due to updated range information, and 35 more are suspected to be species complexes. The species listed here are mostly pelagic and bathypelagic fishes. Euryhaline, anadromous, catadromous, freshwater, and with few exceptions, reef fishes do not achieve global distributions. The most species-rich family of marine fishes (Gobiidae) is absent. The fishes with the longest pelagic larval stage (Anguillidae) are absent. In contrast, requiem sharks (Carcharhinidae), tunas (Scombridae), jacks (Carangidae), remoras (Echeneidae) and especially lanternfishes (Myctophidae) have multiple representatives. The combined evidence indicates that high mobility as an adult is a key requirement to achieve a global distribution. Many others are members of monotypic genera or families, indicating old lineages that did not diversify. We conclude that global ranges may promote persistence over evolutionary timescales, but also reduce opportunities for speciation.

Population structure, connectivity, and demographic history of an apex marine predator, the bull shark Carcharhinus leucas

“…1.23 Mya [0.22 Mya–4.27 Mya], between the end of the Pliocene and the beginning of the Pleistocene. Divergence between these bull shark populations may be due to two biogeographical events: (a) the closure of the Isthmus of Panama, which occurred 3.1–3.5 Mya, and was important in shaping the current distribution of many species and genera by closing the link between the Eastern Pacific and the Western Atlantic (Briggs, ; Coates et al, ), and (b) the formation of the Benguela Upwelling System (~2 Mya), a cold water oceanographic system running along the west coast of South Africa and Namibia (Briggs, ) that restricts the mixing of tropical species populations between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans via the southern tip of Africa (see Gaither, Bowen, Rocha, and Briggs () for a review). Nevertheless, despite a small sample size in the Eastern Pacific ( n = 5), Testerman () identified only one cluster that grouped bull shark samples from the Eastern Pacific and the Western Atlantic, suggesting that bull shark migration might have occurred after the Isthmus of Panama closure through the Panama Canal.…”

Life history traits and temporal trends of abundance of the orange‐spotted trevally (Carangoides bajad) from Saudi waters of the Gulf

“…Carangid fishes are widely distributed in all tropical and subtropical seas and are among the most economically important coastal pelagic fishes of the world (Gaither et al ., ). They have a long and continuous history of exploitation in the Arabian Peninsula, dating back to the period from 6000–7000 year ago to the present (Beech, ; Izquierdo et al ., ; Vorenger, ).…”

Description of a new deep-water dogfish shark from Hawaii, with comments on the Squalus mitsukurii species complex in the West Pacific

“…Within this genus, genetic and morphological examinations have revealed a series of species complexes characterized by relatively shallow evolutionary divergences among putative species (Last et al 2007c; Gaither et al 2016; Veríssimo et al 2017). Such complexes are not unusual in nature, having been observed across a variety of phyla from insects (Perring 2001) and nematodes (Chilton et al 1995) to bony fishes (Barluenga and Meyer 2004), and have been shown to harbor “cryptic” diversity not always apparent from morphology alone (Daly-Engel et al Submitted).…”