New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Geographic distribution of marine reef fishes in the
New Zealand region
MALCOLM P. FRANCIS
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd
P. O. Box 14-901
Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract The geographic distributions of 375 reef and
reef-associated fishes are reported for 16 regions ranging from Norfolk and
Kermadec Islands in the north to Macquarie Island in the south. Species
diversity was greatest at Norfolk Island (228 species) and lowest at Macquarie
Island (6 species). Diversity declined linearly with increasing latitude. Most
species were either widespread or had very restricted distributions. Widespread
species generally ranged from Three Kings Islands to Stewart Island. The most
widespread species occurred in 14 of the 16 regions. Species with restricted
distributions were mainly tropical or subtropical species that occurred at one
or more of Norfolk Island, Kermadec Islands, and North-East North Island.
Principal Components Analysis (PCA) identified eight groups of regions with
similar species compositions. These eight groups reflected the latitudinal
variation in sea surface temperature. Seven species distributional groups were
recognised. Tropical (167 species) and antarctic (4 species) groups were
identified using distributional data from the literature. A PCA ordination was
carried out on the remaining 204 species and five further species groups were
identified: subtropical (77 species), warm temperate (32), widespread (81),
cool temperate (10), and subantarctic (4).
Keywords reef fish; biogeography; distribution; principal
components analysis; diversity; species associations
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1996: Vol. 30:
35-55
0028-8330/96/3001-0035 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand
1996
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1431K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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