Ecology of intertidal fishes of the Southeastern Pacific Ocean: A review

Abstract

Intertidal fishes have received a great deal of attention in last decades serving as a sound study model in marine ecology. They occupy habitats that are readily subject to human alteration. In this review, the state of the art of research on the ecology of intertidal fishes along the coast the Southeastern Pacific Ocean (Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Chile) is presented and discussed, highlighting topics such as diversity, trophic ecology, behavioral ecology, parasitology, biogeography, pollution, and conservation, with the goal of identifying general gaps and areas in need of further attention. The analysis was conducted by assessing studies indexed on the ISI Web of Science and Google Scholar databases until March, 2023. A total of 94 studies were found in the surveyed databases, most of them carried out along the Chilean coast. A total of 137 species of intertidal fishes belonging to 47 families and 12 orders has been reported so far along the coast of Southeastern Pacific Ocean, being Labrisomidae, Pomacentridae, Notothenidae, Gobiesocidae, Gobidae, and Muraenidae the most common families. Large spatial and temporal variability are key characteristics of fish assemblages, which seem to be highly influenced the intensity of ENSO events. Trophically speaking, intertidal fish species are primarily carnivorous, feeding almost exclusively on benthic invertebrates, being small mobile crustaceans, particularly amphipods, isopods, decapods and copepods, the predominant prey items in their diets. Physiologically, new evidence suggests processes of local adaptation, rather than plasticity in thermoregulatory and energetic mechanisms. A total of 40 parasite species belonging to Trematoda, Nematoda, Acanthocephala, Cestoda, Annelida and Copepoda have been reported among intertidal fish species, being copepods and trematodes the commonest. Pelagic larval duration have been observed to vary from 45 to 120 days for 14 species of intertidal rocky fishes, which correspond to comparatively longer periods than those of their counterparts in tropical and warmer-temperate waters. The following three biogeographic provinces exist along the Southeastern Pacific coast, presenting taxonomic compositional differences in intertidal fishes: the tropical Panamanian Province, the warm-temperate Peruvian-Chilean Province, and the Magellan Province. Geographically, there are more species in the tropics than in temperate latitudes. Microplastic fibers and coastal artificial light have been reported to be the major sources of pollution in intertidal fishes. Even though intertidal reef habitats are the most impacted ecosystems in the marine realm, there are still no conservation and management strategies in place to protect these particular environments.