Experimental analysis of recruitment patterns of coral reef fishes in seagrass beds: Effects of substrate type, shape, and rigidity

Habitat choice of reef fish larvae at settlement is one of the mechanisms proposed to explain spatial patterns in the distribution of fishes and the corresponding spatial structure of communities. Field experiments using Pomacentridae were conducted at Iriomote Island, southern Japan, in order to determine if rare recruitment of coral reef fishes in seagrass beds is due to larval settlement preference. When three types of natural patch treatments (branching coral patch, seagrass patch, and control without patches) were established in cleared seagrass squares in the center of a seagrass bed, four pomacentrid species, Amblyglyphidodon curacao, Dischistodus prosopotaenia, Cheiloprion labiatus, and Dascyllus aruanus, recruited exclusively onto the coral patches, indicating that larvae distributed in the seagrass bed may have preferred a coral rather than seagrass substrate as a settlement habitat. The effects of differences in physical shape (grid structure for branching coral vs. vertical structure for seagrass leaves) and rigidity (rigid substrate for coral vs. flexible substrate for seagrass) between coral and seagrass substrates on such recruitment patterns were investigated using artificial coral and seagrass units. When artificial habitat units with predator exclusion cages were established in the cleared seagrass squares as above, high densities of A. curacao and D. prosopotaenia recruits were observed on the rigid rather than flexible habitat units (both unit types having similar shape), whereas differences in recruit numbers of the two species were unclear in differently shaped units. These results demonstrated that even though pomacentrid larvae are distributed in the seagrass bed, they do not settle on the seagrass substrate owing to their habitat choice being partially based on a preference for substrate rigidity. Moreover, non-recruitment of C. labiatus and D. aruanus on artificial habitat units suggested that the presence of living coral substrates rather than physical shape/rigidity of substrates are an important cue for habitat choice of these fishes.     

The life history and sexual biology of Pseudunciola obliquua (crustacea: amphipoda) in the New York Bight

Pseudunciola obliquua is the most abundant subtidal amphipod of the near-shore macrobenthos in the New York Bight south of Fire Island. It has an annual life-cycle. Breeding occurs in March and April, and a single brood of between 8 and 20 eggs per female is produced. Fecundity is linearly proportional to maternal length. The eggs take about two months to develop; the juveniles emerge in June and July. Initial recruitment in the study area was estimated to be 2980 and 5850 per m² for the 1979–1980 and 1980–1981 year classes, respectively. Of the initial recruits only about 10% survive to form the reproductive stock of the following spring.Females and males grow at similar rates and are equally abundant as juveniles and initially as adults, until they reach sexual maturity. After breeding, the abundance of males decreases rapidly due to post-reproductive death. Females continue to live, carrying the developing eggs in their brood pouches. Mean female growth increases throughout the brooding period until the young are released, shortly after which adult females also die. The entire generation of reproductive adults has died by September.