reef fishes

Patterns of taxonomic and functional diversity in the global cleaner reef fish fauna

**Aim:** Several drivers explain the reef fish distribution. However, these failed to find evidences if these drivers also explain the distribution and traits of cleaner reef fishes. Here we examine...

Predicting the effects of body size, temperature and diet on animal feeding rates

Many reef fishes feed constantly at the bottom of the reef from where they garner different types of food such as detritus, algae and invertebrates. Food consumption is extremely important for fish to achieve their energy targets, grow and reproduce. Unfortunately, quantifying fish food consumption by fish in the field is challenging because they are highly mobile organisms...

The evolution of latitudinal ranges in reef associated fishes: Heritability, limits and inverse Rapoport's rule

**Aim:** Variation in the size and position of geographical ranges is a key variable that underlies most biogeographical patterns. However, relatively little is known in terms of general principles driving their evolution, particularly in the marine realm. In this study we explore several fundamental properties regarding the evolution of reef fish latitudinal...

Networks in nature

Exploring methods and patterns of ecological networks.

Reef fish macroecology and evolution

Reef fish ecology and evolution at broad scales.

Nestedness across biological scales

Biological networks pervade nature. They describe systems throughout all levels of biological organization, from molecules regulating metabolism to species interactions that shape ecosystem dynamics. The network thinking revealed recurrent organizational patterns in complex biological systems, such as the formation of semi-independent groups of connected elements (modularity) and non-random distributions of interactions among elements...

Abundance, diet, foraging and nutritional condition of the banded butterflyfish (*Chaetodon striatus*) along the western Atlantic

The feeding behaviour and diet plasticity of a given species are usually shaped by the relationship between species physiology and the quality and availability of resources in the environment. As such, some species may achieve wide geographical distributions by utilizing multiple resources at different sites within their ranges. We studied the distribution and feeding of *Chaetodon striatus*...

Community structure of reef fishes on a remote oceanic island: the relative influence of abiotic and biotic variables

This study investigates the reef fish community structure of the world's smallest remote tropical island, the St Peter and St Paul's Archipelago, in the equatorial Atlantic. The interplay between isolation, high endemism and low species richness makes the St Peter and St Paul's Archipelago ecologically simpler than larger and highly connected shelf reef systems, making it an important natural laboratory for ecology and biogeography, particularly with respect to the effects of abiotic and biotic factors, and the functional organisation of such a depauperate community...

Diet and diversification in the evolution of coral reef fishes

The disparity in species richness among evolutionary lineages is one of the oldest and most intriguing issues in evolutionary biology. Although geographical factors have been traditionally thought to promote speciation, recent studies have underscored the importance of ecological interactions as one of the main drivers of diversification. Here, we test if differences in species richness of closely related lineages match predictions based on the concept of density-dependent diversification...