New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Patterns of abundance and population size structure of herbivorous fishes at the subtropical Kermadec Islands and in mainland New Zealand

RUSSELL G. COLE

Leigh Marine Laboratory
and Department of Zoology
University of Auckland
P. O. Box 349
Warkworth, New Zealand

and

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric
Research Ltd
P. O. Box 893
Nelson, New Zealand
email: r.cole@niwa.cri.nz

Abstract  Patterns of abundance and population size structure for nominally herbivorous fishes were investigated at the subtropical Kermadec Islands in 1992 using both tape transect and timed-count techniques. Timed counts were subsequently used to sample six localities in mainland New Zealand, including coastal offshore islands. Herbivorous fishes of all genera were most abundant in shallow water. Kermadec Islands had slightly greater species richness of herbivorous fishes than north-eastern mainland New Zealand and abundances in timed-transects also showed a clear decline from north to south, with the southern localities having extremely low abundances. Offshore island groups in north-eastern New Zealand had assemblages that were dominated by one pomacentrid, and size-frequency distributions that were dominated by one adult size class of that species, whereas size-frequency distributions at mainland New Zealand and Kermadec Islands locations were platykurtic. At Leigh, herbivorous fishes were observed throughout the depth range sampled (0-15 m) but were much more common in shallow macroalgal-dominated habitats. There were suggestive patterns of increasing size and decreasing abundance with increasing latitudes.

Keywords  fish; grazing; macroalgae; habitat structure; herbivore

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2001, Vol. 35: 445-456

0028-8330/01/3503-0445 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2001

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (822K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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