Pratchett, Morgan S. (2014) Feeding preferences and dietary specialisation among obligate coral-feeding butterflyfishes. In: Pratchett, Morgan S., Berumen, Michael L., and Kapoor, B.G., (eds.) Biology of Butterflyfishes. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA, pp. 140-179.

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Abstract

[Extract] Coral reef fishes have long been known to exhibit highly specialised patterns of habitat use (e.g., Fautin, 1985; Munday et al., 1997; Gardiner and Jones, 2005), but are generally considered to be highly versatile in their feeding (Ross, 1986; Bellwood et al., 2006c), opportunistically consuming a wide range of different prey. One striking example of this is the range of fishes (including algal farming damselfishes) that abandon their normal feeding habitats to take advantage of ephemeral, lipid-rich prey, feeding on corals eggs during annual mass spawning by scleractinian corals (Pratchett et al., 2001; McCormick, 2003). There is however, increasing realisation that coral reef fishes can be extremely specialised when it comes to diet. The broad trophic groups once used to categorise reef fishes (e.g., planktivores, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores) are increasingly being sub-divided to capture important differences in ecosystem function (Graham et al., 2006; Hoey and Bellwood, 2011), while some studies simply recognise that individual species have unique and important functional roles (e.g., Bellwood et al., 2003, 2006b). Many species have extremely specialised diets or feeding habits, such as Holacanthus angelfishes that feed almost exclusively on sponges, and mainly on just one species (Randall and Hartman, 1968) or tube-lip wrasses (Labroides and Labrichthys) that consume coral mucous from small wounds that they inflict on specific coral types (Cole et al., 2008).

Item ID:	28788
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN:	978-1-4665-8289-7
Date Deposited:	06 Mar 2014 03:29
FoR Codes:	06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0602 Ecology > 060205 Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl Marine Ichthyology) @ 50% 06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0608 Zoology > 060801 Animal Behaviour @ 30% 06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0608 Zoology > 060809 Vertebrate Biology @ 20%
SEO Codes:	97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970106 Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences @ 50% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9608 Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity > 960808 Marine Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity @ 50%
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