Latitudinal shifts in coral reef fishes: why some species do and others do not shift

David A. Feary*, Morgan S. Pratchett, Micheal J Emslie, Ashley M. Fowler, Will F. Figueira, Osmar J. Luiz, Yohei Nakamura, David J. Booth

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    153 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Climate change is resulting in rapid poleward shifts in the geographical distribution of many tropical fish species, but it is equally apparent that some fishes are failing to exhibit expected shifts in their geographical distribution. There is still little understanding of the species-specific traits that may constrain or promote successful establishment of populations in temperate regions. We review the factors likely to affect population establishment, including larval supply, settlement and post-settlement processes. In addition, we conduct meta-analyses on existing and new data to examine relationships between species-specific traits and vagrancy. We show that tropical vagrant species are more likely to originate from high-latitude populations, while at the demographic level, tropical fish species with large body size, high swimming ability, large size at settlement and pelagic spawning behaviour are more likely to show successful settlement into temperate habitats. We also show that both habitat and food limitation at settlement and within juvenile stages may constrain tropical vagrant communities to those species with medium to low reliance on coral resources.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)593-615
    Number of pages23
    JournalFish and Fisheries
    Volume15
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2014

    Keywords

    • Climate change adaptation
    • Global warming
    • Range shifts
    • Temperate reef
    • Tropical reef fishes
    • Tropical vagrant

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