Ie. Hendriks et al., Vertical distributions of late stage larval fishes in the nearshore watersof the San Bias Archipelago, Caribbean Panama, CORAL REEF, 20(1), 2001, pp. 77-84
Light traps were used to describe the vertical distribution of late larval
stages of reef fishes in the San Blas Archipelago during three successive n
ew moon periods. Traps were deployed in the lagoon and at an exposed site o
n the outer reef edge. At each site, two traps were anchored at the surface
and two traps just above the bottom. Most families of reef fishes that wer
e abundant in catches displayed clear patterns of depth preference. The lar
vae of gerrids, pomacentrids and lutjanids were predominantly captured in s
hallow traps. while gobiids, labrids, apogonids and blenniids were usually
collected in deep traps. Studies that used lights to aggregate and collect
larval fishes display marked differences in the composition of catches betw
een the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and the Caribbean. In order to determine w
hether such results were due to biases inherent in different sampling metho
ds, or to locality-specific patterns of larval behaviour, we simultaneously
deployed light traps and dip-netting around lights during three new moons
in the San Blas Archipelago. We found that these sampling techniques collec
ted differing components of the larval fish assemblage from the same water
mass. However, there remains good evidence for the existence of locality-sp
ecific responses to light in older larval stages, suggesting that broad gen
eralisations about patterns and causes of vertical distributions may be dif
ficult to achieve.