ABSTRACT
Michel Kulbicki,1,* Laurent Vigliola,2 Laurent Wantiez,3 Nicolas Hubert,4 Sergio R. Floeter5 and Robert F. Myers6
The biogeography of coral reef fishes is a complex issue still poorly understood largely because i) the knowledge of geographic ranges of many species is still far from complete; and ii) identifi cation remains problematic for several taxa, especially within some families such as the Muraenidae, Ophichtidae, Apogonidae, Gobiidae and Trypterygiidae. There have been a number of attempts to understand the regional distribution of coral reef
1Centre IRD (Laboratoire Arago), BP 44-66651, Banyuls, France. E-mail: michel.kulbicki@ird.fr 2Centre IRD (Nouméa), 101 Promenade Roger Laroque, Anse Vata, BP A5-98848 Noumea, New Caledonia. E-mail: laurent.vigliola@ird.fr 3Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, BP R4-98851 Nouméa cedex, New Caledonia. E-mail: laurent.wantiez@univ-nc.nc 4Université Montpellier II, Case courrier 63, Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution, Dpt Conservation et Domestication, 34095 Montpellier. E-mail: nicolas.hubert@ird.fr 5Departamento de Ecologia e Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina 88010-970, Brazil. E-mail: sergio.fl oeter@ufsc.br 6Seaclicks/CoralGraphics, 9273 Silent Oak Circle, Wellington FL 33411-6634 United States. E-mail: robmyers1423@gmail.com *Corresponding author
fi shes, in the Atlantic (e.g., Floeter et al., 2008), in the Indo-west Pacifi c (e.g., Springer, 1982; Bellwood and Hughes, 2001; Santini and Winterbottom, 2002; Allen, 2000, 2007) and in the Tropical Eastern Pacifi c (e.g., Robertson and Cramer, 2009), however there have been very few attempts to understand such patterns on a worldwide scale. A notable exception is Roberts et al. (2002), which investigated the distribution of 1700 species of coral reef fi shes worldwide to compare the overlap between diversity hotspots and species geographic range. At present there is little general understanding of the distribution of coral reef fi shes, except for the major patterns of diversity and endemism, and on the factors that may lead to this distribution at a global scale.
