[Coral-List] Canthigaster population irruption

[Janie Wulff]

Following up on Les's comments about mass settlement of tetraodontiform fishes:

Ross Robertson (Robertson, D.R.1998.  Copeia 1988(3):698-703) 
published data on a mass settlement in 1985 of the triggerfish 
Balistes vetula in Panama in the contexts of :  1) settlement data in 
1985 of this species at 81 sites in Panama, Belize, Isla San Andres, 
Santa Marta, and Grand Cayman collected by him, augmented by 
information from responses to questionnaires returned by other 
researchers at 22 localities around the Caribbean, 2) surface current 
patterns in the wider Caribbean, 3) monthly settlement information at 
sites near Punta de San Blas, Panama, for 7 years preceding the mass 
settlement (4 years of non-quantitative observations followed by 3 
years of counts), and for 2 years after the mass settlement, 4) 
settlement during the same time period, at the Punta de San Blas 
sites, of 24 other fish species representing 7 families, 5) 
behavioral observations of settlers wounding each other during 
battles for limited crevice space, and 6) resulting effects on the 
adult populations.  I'd be happy to send the pdf to anyone who would 
like to have the article but lacks access to Copeia.

- Janie

At 5:22 PM +0000 9/14/13, Kaufman, Leslie S wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>Part of the old discussion from 2008 was recognition that this kind 
>of event is not uncommon in tetraodontiform fishes (trigger, file, 
>puffer, box, trunk).  The most classic expression is the periodic 
>"larval storm" of Pervagor in the Pacific...though the term larval 
>here is not quite correct: many or most tetraodontiform fishes pass 
>through a pelagic juvenile phase, and it is usually these pelagic 
>juveniles that arrive en masse every so often, with many winding up 
>dead in windrows on beaches.
>
>Les
>
>Les Kaufman
>Professor of Biology
>Boston University Marine Program
>and
>Marine Conservation Fellow
>Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Ecosystem Science and Economics
>Conservation International
>lesk at bu.edu<mailto:lesk at bu.edu>
>
>
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