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Community structure and short temporal stability of a rockpool fish assemblage at Yaku-shima Island, southern Japan, northwestern Pacific

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Abstract

The present study investigated species richness, relative abundance, and short temporal variability of rockpool fish communities on the southwestern coast of Yaku-shima Island, northwestern Pacific. In total, 2,850 fish (total biomass approximately 3,400 g) representing 17 families and 54 species were collected from 16 rockpools from May 2009 to February 2010. Gobiidae (12 species), Blenniidae (10), Pomacentridae (6), and Labridae (5) were the dominant families; Blenniidae was the most abundant family (57.1 % of the total number of fish), followed by Gobiidae (30.1 %), Tripterygiidae (5.3 %), Labridae (3.2 %), and Pomacentridae (2.4 %). The Blenniidae accounted for more than 80.0 % of the community biomass. This dominance of Blenniidae and Gobiidae in the community reflects their diversity in the western Pacific and ability to adapt to rocky intertidal habitats. The mean density and species richness of rockpool fish decreased significantly in winter. This is attributed to a decrease in recruitment of transient and accidental visitor species into the rockpool environments, which in turn was due to a significant decline in water temperature in winter. However, mean diversity index (Simpson’s D) did not vary significantly across the seasons, because over 80.0 % of the total number of individuals in each season was from six common species (three blenniids, two gobiids, and a tripterygiid). It can be concluded that the community composition is generally stable over short time-scales. The biogeographic composition of this assemblage was compared with those of two other sites (cited from two past studies) in southern Japanese waters. These other sites were mostly composed of warm temperate species, with regard to the number of species and individuals, while tropical species were predominant in the assemblage at the southwestern coast of Yaku-shima Island. This result suggests that the warm Kuroshio Current has more influence on the Yaku-shima Island coastal fauna than it does on those of the other sites in southern Japanese waters.

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Acknowledgments

This study was conducted as a part of my doctoral thesis at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the following persons: Tomoki Sunobe of Tateyama Station, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology who helped me in all respects as my thesis adviser; Tomotsugu Kamikawa, Fumiko Kamikawa, Nobuaki Hayashida, and Rumiko Hayashida (Yaku-shima town) kindly supported my work on Yaku-shima Island; Shigeru Harazaki (Diving Service Mori to Umi) provided detailed information for fish identification; Masatoshi Meguro (Kagoshima University), Yusuke Miyazaki (The University of Tokyo), and Mikio Watai (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) helped with field sampling; Hiroyuki Motomura (Kagoshima University Museum) provided information on the taxonomic status of scorpaenid species; Hiroshi Kohno (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology) assisted with the collection of literature; and Hiroshi Senou and Rie Takahashi (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) who were contracted to manage all the specimens collected in this study for the museum collection. I am also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for providing various critical comments on the manuscript. This study was partly supported by a grant from the Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists (Tokyo, Japan).

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  1. Atsunobu Murase

    Present address: Parque Nacional Carara, Tárcoles, Garabito, Puntarenas, 61102, Costa Rica

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  1. Tateyama Station, Field Science Center, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 670 Banda, Tateyama, Chiba, 294-0308, Japan

    Atsunobu Murase

  2. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Costa Rica, Oficentro Ejecutivo del Mall San Pedro, 6to piso, San pedro de Montes de Oca, San José, Costa Rica

    Atsunobu Murase

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Murase, A. Community structure and short temporal stability of a rockpool fish assemblage at Yaku-shima Island, southern Japan, northwestern Pacific. Ichthyol Res 60, 312–326 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-013-0351-1

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