Characteristics of settling coral reef fish are related to recruitment timing and success.

ABSTRACT: Many marine populations exhibit high variability in the recruitment of young into the population. While environmental cycles and oceanography explain some patterns of replenishment, the role of other growth-related processes in influencing settlement and recruitment is less clear. Examination of a 65-mo. time series of recruitment of a common coral reef fish, Stegastes partitus, to the reefs of the upper Florida Keys revealed that during peak recruitment months, settlement stage larvae arriving during dark lunar phases grew faster as larvae and were larger at settlement compared to those settling during the light lunar phases. However, the strength and direction of early trait-mediated selective mortality also varied by settlement lunar phase such that the early life history traits of 2-4

SUBMITTER: Rankin TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4177557 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature