ABSTRACT
The conundrum of vertebrate ecological and evolutionary water-to-land transitions is the identification of the selective factors that facilitated them. In the intertidal zone, this transition is essentially a movement across the intertidal ecological gradient in a water-to-land direction, or a spatio-temporal change of the distribution of evolutionary lineages, at the interface between the marine and terrestrial domains. Spatio-temporal patterns of behaviors with specific autecological and synecological adaptive values can be compared between different mudskipper species. The spatio-temporal patterns of specific eco-ethological units were then explored and discussed to achieve the second objective of the study. The spatio-temporal distribution of fertilization and embryonic development is relatively invariant in Ps. cf. sobrinus, although some variation was observed in the spatial distribution of reproductive burrows. The spatio-temporal variation of burrowing and feeding in this species appears to convey relevant information with respect to its adaptation to semi-terrestrial habitats.
