Exploring the larval fish community of the central Red Sea with an integrated morphological and molecular approach
Type
ArticleAuthors
Isari, Stamatina
Pearman, John K.

Castano, Laura Casas
Michell, Craig
Curdia, Joao
Berumen, Michael L.

Irigoien, Xabier

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionMarine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Date
2017-08-03Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/625335
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Show full item recordAbstract
An important aspect of population dynamics for coral reef fishes is the input of new individuals from the pelagic larval pool. However, the high biodiversity and the difficulty of identifying larvae of closely related species represent obstacles to more fully understanding these populations. In this study, we combined morphology and genetic barcoding (Cytochrome Oxidase I gene) to characterize the seasonal patterns of the larval fish community at two sites in close proximity to coral reefs in the central-north Red Sea: one shallower inshore location (50 m depth) and a nearby site located in deeper and more offshore waters (~ 500 m depth). Fish larvae were collected using oblique tows of a 60 cm-bongo net (500 μm mesh size) every month for one year (2013). During the warmer period of the year (June-November), the larval fish stock was comparable between sampling sites. However, during the colder months, abundances were higher in the inshore than in the offshore waters. Taxonomic composition and temporal variation of community structure differed notably between sites, potentially reflecting habitat differences, reproductive patterns of adults, and/or advective processes in the area. Eleven out of a total of 62 recorded families comprised 69–94% of the fish larval community, depending on sampling site and month. Richness of taxa was notably higher in the inshore station compared to the offshore, particularly during the colder period of the year and especially for the gobiids and apogonids. Two mesopelagic taxa (Vinciguerria sp. and Benthosema spp.) comprised an important component of the larval community at the deeper site with only a small and sporadic occurrence in the shallower inshore waters. Our data provide an important baseline reference for the larval fish communities of the central Red Sea, representing the first such study from Saudi Arabian waters.Citation
Isari S, Pearman JK, Casas L, Michell CT, Curdia J, et al. (2017) Exploring the larval fish community of the central Red Sea with an integrated morphological and molecular approach. PLOS ONE 12: e0182503. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182503.Sponsors
The research was supported by baseline funding provided by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology to XI. SI was co-funded by the Red Sea Research Center Competitive Funding project (CCF). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The authors thank Arwa Aynousah for assistance in the laboratory work and Ioannis Georga-kakis and Francis Mallon for assistance in the field work. We are also thankful to the editor Dr. H. M. Patterson and two anonymous reviewers for their corrections and constructive comments on the manuscript.Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)Journal
PLOS ONEPubMed ID
28771590ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pone.0182503
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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