Intertidal Biogeographic Subprovinces: Local and Regional Factors Shaping Fish Assemblages

Abstract

Intertidal zones shelter a wealth of species and natural resources, provide important ecological services, and sustain several economic activities in coastal communities. However, the tidepool fish species that inhabit the intertidal zone are subject to a wide array of impacts due to the human presence and their accessibility, creating a challenge for the mitigation of habitat loss, in particular in tropical regions where the ecology and distribution of species are poorly known. In this study, we investigated tidepool fish species distribution patterns systematically across ca. 4,900 km of tropical Brazilian coastline (00-21 • latitude) in order to verify the latitudinal trends and environmental variables influencing tidepool communities. A total of 5,113 fish specimens belonging to 67 taxa were collected at the 19 sites, revealing four distinct biogeographic subprovinces: Amazon Estuary (AE), Northern Mangrove (NM), Northeastern Semiarid (NS), and Tropical Warm (TW). Distance-based linear modeling evidenced in sequence water salinity, tidal range, shape of rocky shore formation, algae cover, distance to subtidal zone, latitude and rainfall as the most important environmental variables to shape biogeographic subprovinces. Fish species such as Bathygobius soporator, Bathygobius geminatus, Labrisomus nuchipinnis, and Scartella cristata presented wide distribution, occupying more than one subprovince. The trophic structure of the tidepool fishes also varied among subprovinces, with carnivores being associated with the AE subprovince, omnivores with the NM, and herbivores dominating the NS and TW. These findings reinforce the determining role of local and regional factors in the geographic distribution of fish and, in particular, highlight a new arrangement for the intertidal subprovinces of the tropical Brazilian shoreline, which may provide a valuable tool for the more effective management and conservation of this vulnerable ecosystem at the land-ocean interface.

Niche-Relationships Within and Among Intertidal Reef Fish Species

“…and Tomicodon spp. in islands compared to mainland (Andrades et al, 2018a), agreeing to the MacArthur et al (1972) "density compensation" hypothesis. Yet, as intraspecific competition increases in response to density compensation (Crowell, 1962;Pafilis et al, 2009), a FIGURE 2 | The four-leaf tree predicting the traits related to interspecific competition success of fish taxa.…”

Marine ecoregions and subecoregions within Indo‐West Australian waters: A statistical approach based on species distributions

“…However, it does not describe well the distribution of rocky intertidal assemblages, for example, along the Pacific coast of North America (Blanchette et al, 2008) and the coast of Peru (Ibanez-Erquiaga et al, 2018), or the distribution of fish assemblages along Caribbean (Robertson & Cramer, 2014) and Mediterranean (Hattab et al, 2015) coasts. Some studies also identified smaller units nested within ecoregions (Andrades et al, 2018;Sink et al, 2005), suggesting that ecoregions are not the smallest units in marine bioregionalisation. However, as the MEOW system covers both shallow-water and deep-sea habitats, it remains unclear whether it represents the distribution of a broad range of taxonomic groups, with different depth preferences, across marine habitats.…”

Habitat‐mediated reef fish assemblages in coral reef tidal pools

“…Due to their importance as nursery habitats to juvenile fish fauna, including endangered species (Lobato et al., 2016), or permanent habitats for multiples species from different trophic groups (Andrades et al., 2018), and provided the constant human pressure through unregulated tourism, pollution, and coastal construction among others, the comprehension of how temporal and spatial factors can determine fish occupancy is detrimental to guide management and conservation actions.…”