| cleaner wrasse prefer client mucus: support for partner control mechanisms in cleaning interactions. | recent studies on cleaning behaviour suggest that there are conflicts between cleaners and their clients over what cleaners eat. the diet of cleaners usually contains ectoparasites and some client tissue. it is unclear, however, whether cleaners prefer client tissue over ectoparasites or whether they include client tissue in their diet only when searching for parasites alone is not profitable. to distinguish between these two hypotheses, we trained cleaner fish labroides dimidiatus to feed from ... | 2003 | 14667394 |
| abundance, diversity, and activity of microbial assemblages associated with coral reef fish guts and feces. | feces and distal gut contents were collected from three coral reef fish species. bacteria cell abundances, as determined via epifluorescence microscopy, ranged two orders of magnitude among the fishes. mass-specific and apparent cell-specific hydrolytic enzyme activities in feces from chlorurus sordidus were very high, suggesting that endogenous fish enzymes were egested into feces. denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis profiles of 16s rrna genes were more similar among multiple individuals of ... | 2010 | 20455942 |
| parrotfish grazing ability: interspecific differences in relation to jaw-lever mechanics and relative weight of adductor mandibulae on an okinawan coral reef. | parrotfishes (family labridae: scarini) are regarded to have important roles for maintaining the ecosystem balance in coral reefs due to their removal of organic matter and calcic substrates by grazing. the purpose of the present study was to clarify the interspecific differences in grazing ability of five parrotfish species (chlorurus sordidus, c. bowersi, scarus rivulatus, s. niger and s. forsteni) in relation to interspecific differences in jaw-lever mechanics and the relative weight of the a ... | 2016 | 27635364 |
| phase shift facilitation following cyclone disturbance on coral reefs. | while positive interactions have been observed to influence patterns of recruitment and succession in marine and terrestrial plant communities, the role of facilitation in macroalgal phase shifts is relatively unknown. in december 2012, typhoon bopha caused catastrophic losses of corals on the eastern reefs of palau. within weeks of the typhoon, an ephemeral bloom of monospecific macroalgae (liagora sp.) was observed, reaching a peak of 38.6% cover in february 2013. at this peak, we observed a p ... | 2015 | 25761445 |
| do behavioral foraging responses of prey to predators function similarly in restored and pristine foodwebs? | efforts to restore top predators in human-altered systems raise the question of whether rebounds in predator populations are sufficient to restore pristine foodweb dynamics. ocean ecosystems provide an ideal system to test this question. removal of fishing in marine reserves often reverses declines in predator densities and size. however, whether this leads to restoration of key functional characteristics of foodwebs, especially prey foraging behavior, is unclear. the question of whether restore ... | 2012 | 22403650 |
| determinants of the physiological colour patterns of juvenile parrotfish, chlorurus sordidus | field observations of the different physiological colour patterns (pcps) of juvenile bullethead parrotfish, chlorurus sordiduswere conducted at three sites around lizard island, australia. the aim of the study was to quantify, using log-linear analysis, the influence of simultaneously interacting variables upon the pcps shown by this species in the field. it was proposed that features of an individual, such as body size (total length) and schooling behaviour (schooling/not schooling), as well as ... | 1997 | 9236021 |
| gene rearrangements and evolution of trna pseudogenes in the mitochondrial genome of the parrotfish (teleostei: perciformes: scaridae). | genomic size of animal mitochondrial dna is usually minimized over time. thus, when regional duplications occur, they are followed by a rapid elimination of redundant material. in contrast to this general view, we report here long-sustained trna pseudogenes in the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of teleost fishes of the family scaridae (parrotfishes). during the course of a molecular phylogenetic study of the suborder labroidei, we determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the mitogenome ... | 2004 | 15553084 |
| fish mucous cocoons: the 'mosquito nets' of the sea. | mucus performs numerous protective functions in vertebrates, and in fishes may defend them against harmful organisms, although often the evidence is contradictory. the function of the mucous cocoons that many parrotfishes and wrasses sleep in, while long used as a classical example of antipredator behaviour, remains unresolved. ectoparasitic gnathiid isopods (gnathiidae), which feed on the blood of fish, are removed by cleaner fish during the day; however, it is unclear how parrotfish and wrasse ... | 2011 | 21084337 |
| the complete mitochondrial genome of the black-spot tuskfish (choerodon schoenleinii). | choerodon schoenleinii, a critically endangered ocean fish, is also a highly prized commercial fish. in this study, we present the complete mitochondrial genome of c. schoenleinii based on ngs. the length of c. schoenleinii mitochondrial genome is 16,504 bp which consists of 13 protein-coding genes, two rrna genes, 22 trna genes, and a d-loop. the gene order and the composition of mitochondrial genome in c. schoenleinii were similar to other vertebrates. the nucleotide compositions of the light ... | 2016 | 26016881 |
| distribution, behavior, and condition of herbivorous fishes on coral reefs track algal resources. | herbivore distribution can impact community structure and ecosystem function. on coral reefs, herbivores are thought to play an important role in promoting coral dominance, but how they are distributed relative to algae is not well known. here, we evaluated whether the distribution, behavior, and condition of herbivorous fishes correlated with algal resource availability at six sites in the back reef environment of moorea, french polynesia. specifically, we tested the hypotheses that increased a ... | 2016 | 26271287 |