Extent of Mangrove Nursery Habitats Determines the Geographic Distribution of a Coral Reef Fish in a South-Pacific Archipelago

Occurrence
Latest version published on 8 August 2018
Publication date:
8 August 2018
Published by:
No organisation
License:
CC-BY 4.0

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Description

Understanding the drivers of species' geographic distribution has fundamental implications for the management of biodiversity. For coral reef fishes, mangroves have long been recognized as important nursery habitats sustaining biodiversity in the Western Atlantic but there is still debate about their role in the Indo-Pacific. Here, we combined LA-ICP-MS otolith microchemistry, underwater visual censuses (UVC) and mangrove cartography to estimate the importance of mangroves for the Indo-Pacific coral reef fish Lutjanus fulviflamma in the archipelago of New Caledonia. Otolith elemental compositions allowed high discrimination of mangroves and reefs with 83.8% and 98.7% correct classification, respectively. Reefs were characterized by higher concentrations of Rb and Sr and mangroves by higher concentrations of Ba, Cr, Mn and Sn. All adult L. fulviflamma collected on reefs presented a mangrove signature during their juvenile stage with 85% inhabiting mangrove for their entire juvenile life (about 1 year). The analysis of 2942 UVC revealed that the species was absent from isolated islands of the New Caledonian archipelago where mangroves were absent. Furthermore, strong positive correlations existed between the abundance of L. fulviflamma and the area of mangrove (r = 0.84 for occurrence, 0.93 for density and 0.89 for biomass). These results indicate that mangrove forest is an obligatory juvenile habitat for L. fulviflamma in New Caledonia and emphasize the potential importance of mangroves for Indo-Pacific coral reef fishes.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 30 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
30
MeasurementOrFact 
336

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Versions

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How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Paillon C, Wantiez L, Kulbicki M, Labonne M, Vigliola L (2014) Data from: Extent of Mangrove Nursery Habitats Determines the Geographic Distribution of a Coral Reef Fish in a South-Pacific Archipelago. Southwestern Pacific OBIS, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington, New Zealand, 30 records, Online http://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource.do?r=lfulviflamma released on February 26, 2016.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has not been registered with GBIF

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation

Contacts

Christelle Pallion
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
UR227 CoRéUs, Laboratoire Excellence LABEX corai
Nouméa
NC
Kevin Mackay
  • Metadata Provider
Marine Data Manager
NIWA
Private Bag 14-901
Kilbirnie
Wellington
NZ
Laurent Wantiez
  • Author
Researcher
Université de Nouvelle-Calédonie (UNC)
LIVE (EA4243),
Nouméa
NC
Michel Kulbicki
  • Author
Researcher
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
UR227 CoRéUs, Laboratoire Excellence LABEX corail
Banyuls sur Mer
FR
Maylis Labonne
  • Author
Researcher
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
LEMAR (UMR 6539), Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer
Plouzane
FR
Laurent Vigliola
  • Author
Researcher
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
UR227 CoRéUs, Laboratoire Excellence LABEX corail
Nouméa
NC

Geographic Coverage

New Caledonia

Bounding Coordinates South West [-22.445, 163.925], North East [-20.225, 166.926]

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Species Lutjanus fulviflamma

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2009-01-01 / 2011-01-01

Sampling Methods

The first sampling took place during austral summer 2009 in the mangroves and inner barrier reefs of two sites (Gatope and St Vincent). The second sampling was carried out during austral winter 2010 in the mangroves and inner barrier reefs of eleven sites around the main island. During this sampling, fringing and intermediate reefs were also sampled at four sites (Gatope, Ouano, Prony and St Vincent). Sampling in the mangroves, fringing, intermediate and inner barrier reefs at these 4 sites was repeated during austral winter 2011

Study Extent Fish were sampled for otolith analysis in different mangrove and reef habitats at 11 sites around the main land of New Caledonia over three years (2009, 2010 and 2011). Adults were collected in reef habitats by spear fishing and juveniles were collected in mangroves using small mesh (7 mm) gillnets surrounding an isolated mangrove tree. Gillnets were deployed at high tide and fish collected with handnets in a few cm of water and/or on the ground at low tide. Immediately after collection, fish were put on iced water (<5°C) to be anesthetized. Afterwards, they were transported to the laboratory where they were stored in a freezer (at −20°C) until dissection.

Method step description:

  1. All equipment used for otolith handling was previously decontaminated in 5% ultrapure nitric acid bath during 24 h, rinsed three times with ultrapure water (18.2 MΩ), dried under a laminar flow hood (HEPA 100) and stored dry in plastic bag under the flow hood. At the lab, fish samples were unfrozen and each individual was measured (Fork length, FL) to the nearest mm and weighted to the nearest gram. Paired sagittal otoliths were extracted using ceramic tweezers, cleaned with ultrapure water (18.2 MΩ) and stored dry in plastic vials.

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Paillon C, Wantiez L, Kulbicki M, Labonne M, Vigliola L (2014) Data from: Extent of Mangrove Nursery Habitats Determines the Geographic Distribution of a Coral Reef Fish in a South-Pacific Archipelago. PLoS ONE 9(8): e105158. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105158

Additional Metadata

marine, harvested by iOBIS