New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
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)
This year's abstracts |
Journal home page |
All abstracts |
Publishing home page
