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Reef fish fauna in the coastal waters of Vietnam

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Abstract

During the last few decades, several studies relating to coral reef fishes in Vietnam have been conducted and published for individual coral reefs along the coast and offshore islands. However, no attempts have been made to compile a list of all known reef fish species from the area or to examine patterns of reef fish biodiversity across Vietnam. To address this issue, we assembled a comprehensive species distribution data set of coral reef fishes from the 23 major locations of coral reefs in the coastal waters of Vietnam. A total of 1049 species belonging to 362 genera and 91 families of reef associated fishes are currently known from the area. The 14 most-speciose families, which account for 67.8% of the total reef fish fauna, were Pomacentridae (110 species), Gobiidae (107), Labridae (100), Apogonidae (60), Serranidae (47), Blenniidae (46), Chaetodontidae (41), Scaridae (36), Scorpaenidae (32), Acanthuridae (30), Muraenidae (29), Lutjanidae (26), Carangidae (26), and Holocentridae (21). The central to southeast Vietnam (from Con Co island to Con Dao islands) supported higher species numbers compared to those on the western side of the Tonkin Gulf and the Thailand Gulf. A zoogeographic analysis reveals three distinct groups of reef fishes, in which the southern area supported 3–4 times higher numbers than the northern area and the southwestern area.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Rick Winterbottom and anonymous reviewers who provided comments that helped improve the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam (KC.09.41/16-20) within the framework of the national project entitled “Studies on dispersal mechanisms of larvae and population connectivity of target marine resources for improving management effectiveness of marine protected areas in the coastal waters of Vietnam.” This study also used unpublished data from the current projects entitled “Study on coral reef resilience in comparative areas in South Vietnam for marine biodiversity conservation in a changing world” code: AID-OAA-A-11-0012 supported by USAID and “Investigating the coral reef, biodiversity of benthic communities in deep-sea, heavy metals and antioxidant compounds in benthic macro-inverbrates and some environmental parameters related to ocean acidification in the continental shelf of Southern Vietnam” code: QT.RU.04.02/18-19 conducted in the period of 2017–2019 for analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Oceanography, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), Hà Nội, Vietnam

    Long Van Nguyen & Dat Xuan Mai

  2. Graduate University of Science and Technology (GUST), VAST, Hà Nội, Vietnam

    Long Van Nguyen

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  1. Long Van Nguyen
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Correspondence to Long Van Nguyen.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed by the authors.

Sampling and field studies

All necessary permits for sampling and observational field studies have been obtained by the authors from the competent authorities and are mentioned in the acknowledgements, if applicable.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Author’s contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Long Van Nguyen and Dat Xuan Mai. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Long Van Nguyen. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Communicated by S. E. Lluch-Cota

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Van Nguyen, L., Mai, D.X. Reef fish fauna in the coastal waters of Vietnam. Mar. Biodivers. 50, 100 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-020-01131-2

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