Endemism and the pelagic larval duration of reef fishes in the eastern Pacific Ocean

We examined the relationship between pelagic larval duration (PLD) and spec ies range for the wrasses and damselfishes of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Th is region and these species are particularly appropriate for this analysis, since there is huge variation in the biogeographic range among these reef fishes, from endemics to islands a few kilometers in diameter to pan-Indo-P acific ranges of 25000 km or more. Furthermore, this variation in range occ urs between pairs of congeners. We found no correlation between the mean (o r maximum) PLDs measured from daily otolith increments and biogeographic ra nge, for either family of reef fishes, and even after restricting the analy sis to species with sample sizes over 50 individuals. A pairwise comparison of congeners showed, if anything, a significant inverse relationship betwe en larval duration and range. The correlation between mean PLD and maximum PLD was very strong, even for large sample sizes (r = 0.987), indicating th at mean PLD may be a good proxy measure for maximum PLD. We conclude that, at least within this region and within the limitations of this technique, l arval duration appears not to determine species range.