Fish diversity divergence between tropical eastern pacific and tropical western Atlantic coral reefs

The reef fish assemblage of a coral reef system in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico

“…Average total reef fish density in the VRSNP was 2.3±1.1 Ind/m 2 , which is similar to the records for the Caribbean before the year 2000 (Table 4), which are also higher than more recent records (Álvarez-Filip et al, 2015;Paddack et al, 2009). Olán-González et al (2020) reported for the VRSNP a total average density of 4.64 Ind/m 2 , which is the highest on record, even higher than the 3.73 Ind/m 2 recorded in the Flower Garden Banks, in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico (Buckel et al, 2014), one of the most conserved coral reefs in the tropical Atlantic (Gil-Agudelo et al, 2020;Johnston et al, 2016). The same was reported for the hermatypic coral community in the VRSNP, as coral cover in general is higher compared to other coral reefs in the western tropical Atlantic (Horta-Puga et al, 2015).…”

“…https://doi. org/10.22201/ib.20078706e.2022.93.4156 and 79 species in the VRSNP (Olán-González et al, 2020). However, is lower than the 144 (Pérez-España et al, 2015) and 155 species (Rangel-Ávalos et al, 2008), previously reported for the VRSNP, and the 129 species reported in the Flower Garden Banks (Buckel et al, 2014).…”

“…However, the knowledge on the assemblage structure of reef fishes is scarce, with few studies that just averaged abundances for the whole reef system, which recorded Chromis multilineata, Halichoeres burekae, Coryphopterus personatus, Haemulon aurolineatum, Stegastes adustus, and Abudefduf saxatilis as the most abundant species. Additionally, higher fish densities have been reported for the reefs of the northern group, for the 10-15 m range depth, and for the 2009 year in the 2006-2014 period (González-Gándara & Chávez, 2020;Olán-González et al, 2020;Pérez-España et al, 2015;Rangel-Ávalos et al, 2008). However, none of these studies addressed for differences in the reef fish assemblage structure among reefs, nor they found a relationship with any ecological or environmental factor.…”

“…The most important fished species include tunas, groupers, snappers, catfishes, mullets, snooks, jacks, mackerels, sardines, rays, and sharks, and some of them are considered overfished or in the maximum sustainable limit (CNP, 2018;Díaz-de-León et al, 2004). Due to the importance of the SWGM, there are various studies on the assemblage structure of marine shallow-water fishes, which include: 1) ichthyoplankton and pelagic larval fish assemblages (Flores-Coto et al, 2014;Sanvicente-Añorve et al, 1998); 2) economically and ecologically important demersal and/or benthic species (Amezcua-Linares et al, 2014;Murawski et al, 2018); 3) rocky-bottom fishes (González-Gándara, 2020a, b); and reef fishes (Olán-González et al, 2020;Pérez-España et al, 2015;Rangel-Ávalos et al, 2008). The lasts 3 studies focused on the Veracruz Reef System National Park (VRSNP).…”

Length-Weight Relationship of 20 Cryptobenthic Fish in Coral and Rocky Reefs in the Gulf of California, Mexico

“…A less favorable habitat could afect the ftness of species [14]. Although coral reefs generally host less fsh diversity than rocky reefs in the eastern tropical Pacifc due to a more homogeneous seascape [19] Red dots indicate individuals that were not considered because of unusual values along weight or length axes. Full species names are available in Table 1.…”