Life-history traits of a widely distributed coral reef fish, Mulloidichthys flavolineatus (Mullidae), Okinawa Island, southern Japan

Age, growth and reproductive biology of a widespread coral reef fish, yellowfin goatfish Mulloidichthys vanicolensis (Valenciennes, 1831)

“…In addition, a significant difference was observed between von Bertalanffy growth equations for each sex, indicating that there are differences in growth between females and males. This observation has also been reported in M. vanicolensis in other waters and in M. flavolineatus (Cole, 2009;Reed & Taylor, 2020;Samejima et al, 2021;Wahbeh, 1992) Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is associated with mating systems in many fish. For example, in pair spawning species, males are larger than females due to competition among males.…”

“…This method is reportedly more accurate than scale and whole otolith methods (Lowerre‐Barbieri et al ., 1994). Nonetheless, age assessment of Mullidae has mostly been performed using scales and whole otolith methods, and few reports of age validation have been published (Samejima et al ., 2021; Santana et al ., 2006). In a review, Campana (2001) reported that most age and growth studies did not provide estimates of the precision of ageing and that APE and c.v. were statistically sound measures of the precision of ageing.…”

“…The spawning season is estimated to be June to August in the Gulf of Aqaba (Wahbeh, 1992) and February to October in Hawaii (Cole, 2009). On the contrary, the spawning duration of M. flavolineatus was 3 months in the Gulf of Aqaba (Wahbeh, 1992), Hurghada (Abu El-Regal, 2018), Saipan (Reed & Taylor, 2020), Okinawa (Samejima et al, 2021) and Hawaii (Cole, 2009) and did not seem to correlate with latitude. It is interesting to note the differences in latitude and spawning period trends between these two widely distributed, closely related species.…”

“…This method is reportedly more accurate than scale and whole otolith methods (Lowerre-Barbieri et al, 1994). Nonetheless, age assessment of Mullidae has mostly been performed using scales and whole otolith methods, and few reports of age validation have been published (Samejima et al, 2021;Santana et al, 2006). In a review, Campana (2001) F I G U R E 7 Maturation schedules by fork length fitted to maturity status data for females and males for Mulloidichthys vanicolensis.…”

“…Unfortunately, fewer studies are carried out on middle‐ranked fish families. Although it is in the top 20, life‐history trait details are lacking for Mullidae (Samejima et al ., 2021).…”