Morphometric comparisons of plant-mimetic juvenile fish associated with plant debris observed on Kuchierabu-jima Island, southern Japan

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1 Instituto de Estudos Costeiros, Laboratório de Evolução, Universidade Federal do Pará, Bragança, Pará, Brazil
2 Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan
3 Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1673v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Ecology, Marine Biology, Zoology
Keywords
Protective camouflage, Masquerade, Coastal Environments, Convergent evolution, Shape analysis, Morphometrics
Copyright
© 2016 Queiroz et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Queiroz AC, Sakai Y, Vallinoto M, Barros B. 2016. Morphometric comparisons of plant-mimetic juvenile fish associated with plant debris observed on Kuchierabu-jima Island, southern Japan. PeerJ PrePrints 4:e1673v1

Abstract

The general morphological shape of plant-resembling fish and plant parts were compared using a geometric morphometrics approach. Lobotes surinamensis (Lobotidae), Platax orbicularis (Ephippidae) and Canthidermis maculata (Balistidae), three plant-mimetic fish species, were compared during their early developmental stages with accompanying plant parts (i.e. leaves of several taxa) in the coastal subtropical waters of Kuchierabu-jima Island, closely facing the Kuroshio Current. The degree of similarity shared between the plant parts and co-occurring fish species was quantified, however fish remained morphologically distinct from their plant models. Such similarities were corroborated by a linear model, in which relative body areas of fish and plant models were strongly interdependent. Our results strengthen the paradigm that morphological clues can lead to ecological evidence to allow predictions of behavioural and habitat choice by mimetic fish, according to the degree of similarity shared with their respective models. The resemblance to plant parts detected in the three fish species may provide fitness advantages via convergent evolutionary effects.

Author Comment

This is PeerJ submission for review.

Supplemental Information

S1_Figure

Map of Kuchierabu-Jima Island (A), with the port of Honmura (B), where mimetic fish were observed drifting along with plant debris (C)

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1673v1/supp-1

S2 - dataset

Dataset with raw data used for geometric morphometric analysis

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1673v1/supp-2