Differential use of shelter holes by sympatric species of blennies (Blennidae)
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Differential use of shelter holes by sympatric species of blennies (Blennidae) S. K. Wilson • R. Fisher • M. S. Pratchett
Received: 7 February 2013 / Accepted: 29 March 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract Comparative use of shelter use by three sympatric species of combtooth blenny (Ecsenius stictus, Glyptoparus delicatulus, and Salarias patzneri) was studied among micro-atolls in the lagoon at Lizard Island (14°420 S, 145°300 E), northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Blenny species used different sized holes; however, the average diameter and depth of holes used by the smallest and largest species differed by only 4 and 25 mm, respectively, indicating interspecific differences in suitable refuge can be very subtle. Both hole diameter and depth were positively related to total length of fish, suggesting use of holes relates to interspecific differences in body size. Total abundance of blennies was best explained by a general linear model that included either the number of holes or total habitat area on individual micro-atolls, predictor variables that were positively correlated with each other. However, the relative importance of variables differed among the three species, feeding area being most important for S. patzneri, feeding area and number of holes for E. stictus, and variance in hole diameter being the best explanatory variable for G. delicatulus abundance. The
Communicated by D. Goulet. S. K. Wilson (&) Department of Environment and Conservation, Marine Science Program, Kensington, WA 6151, Australia e-mail: [email protected] S. K. Wilson R. Fisher Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia M. S. Pratchett ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia
number of blenny species on a micro-atoll was best explained by variance in hole diameter, emphasizing the influence of refuge size variety in fish diversity. It is likely that subtle habitat partitioning, which relates to interspecific differences in body size, contributes to the co-existence of blenny species within the same microhabitat, but presence of holes is unlikely to regulate abundance of these fish.
Introduction The abundance and diversity of coral reef fish is often related to structural complexity of the benthos (e.g. Luckhurst and Luckhurst 1978; Sano et al. 1984; Gratwicke and Speight 2005a; Graham et al. 2006). Structurally complex habitats provide a greater number and diversity of refuges (e.g., holes, crevices, under hangs, and caves), which may be especially important for small reef fishes to mitigate normally high rates of predation (Sogard 1997). Small fishes (\10 cm TL) make a disproportionate contribution to the diversity and abundance of fishes on coral reefs (Munday and Jones 1998) and also have high turnover rates (Depczynski et al. 2007), making them very important in terms of ecosystem function and productivity (Ackerman and Bellwood 2000). Reef characteristics and associated structural
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