More than one way to be a planktivore: the vast morphospace of plankton-feeding reef fishes
Ng, Isabelle, Bellwood, David R., Strugnell, Jan M., Floeter, Sergio R., and Siqueira, Alexandre C. (2025) More than one way to be a planktivore: the vast morphospace of plankton-feeding reef fishes. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 35 (2). pp. 911-928.
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Abstract
Planktivorous reef fishes are thought to possess unique morphological traits to feed on small, evasive prey. Despite the multitude of family-level studies addressing this hypothesis, results remain inconclusive. Our goal, therefore, was to determine whether specialised traits and patterns of morphological convergence are congruent across a comprehensive phylogeny of reef-associated fishes. We measured 15 morphological traits from 815 images of 299 species in 12 globally distributed families. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we mapped the evolution of plankton-feeding across lineages; assessed the effect of planktivory on body shape; and tested for the presence of morphological convergence among planktivores. We demonstrate that planktivory is evolutionary ubiquitous and occurs in 12 of the most abundant global families. Some morphological trait differences between planktivores and non-planktivores were detected, but there was no difference in overall body shape. Contrary to longstanding assumptions, we show that planktivores have not converged towards distinct morphologies, but instead encompass the entire morphospace of reef fishes. Due to their behavioural, spatial, temporal, and resource heterogeneity, reef fishes of any shape and size can readily navigate the challenges of plankton-feeding.
| Item ID: | 87565 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1573-5184 |
| Keywords: | Coral reefs, Evolutionary transitions, Morphological adaptations, Phenotypic convergence, Phylogenetic comparative methods, Trophic ecology |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Jan 2026 04:37 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180504 Marine biodiversity @ 100% |
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