D Ross Robertson

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute · Naos Marine Laboratories

The tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) is a biogeographic region with a substantial set of isolated oceanic islands and mainland shoreline habitat barriers, as well as complex oceanographic dynamics due to major ocean currents, upwelling areas, eddies, and thermal instabilities. These characteristics have shaped spatial patterns of biodiversity between...

In preparation for the revised new edition of the 1997 book “The Fishes of the Galapagos Islands” by Jack Stein Grove and Robert J. Lavenberg, to be published next year by the EPCA, the East Pacific Corridor Alliance Foundation (www.epcafoundation.org), we have been reviewing literature and museum records and obtaining additional underwater photogr...

The Tropical Indo-Pacific (TIP) includes about two thirds of the world's tropical oceans and harbors an enormous number of marine species. The distributions of those species within the region is affected by habitat discontinuities and oceanographic features. As well as many smaller ones, the TIP contains seven large recognized biogeographic barrier...

The Tropical Indo-Pacific (TIP) includes about two thirds of the world's tropical oceans and harbors an enormous number of marine species. The distributions of those species within the region is affected by habitat discontinuities and oceanographic features. As well as many smaller ones, the TIP contains seven large recognized biogeographic barrier...

Figure S1. Plots of linear and segmented catch curves for 70 populations of surgeonfish spanning 25 species. Segmented fits are presented as a solid line when they represent significantly better models compared to linear fits at the P < 0.05 level, as black dashed lines at the 0.05 < P < 0.10 level, and as grey dashed lines when they do not represe...

Patterns of cohort decline are key demographic traits that provide a unique temporal perspective vital to understanding population dynamics. The discovery of multidecadal lifespans in tropical surgeonfishes in the 1990s created a paradigm shift to the notion that they are highly vulnerable species with low population recovery rates; however, resear...

The Regal Demoiselle, Neopomacentrus cyanomos is only the second Indo-Pacific reef fish (after the lionfish) to become well established in the Greater Caribbean (GC). It was first discovered, after it already was common, in the southwest Gulf of Mexico (SGM) in 2013. In 2019, an isolated second population was found at Trinidad, 3300 km away. The in...

Earth is home to millions of plant and animal species, with more than 40 thousand species facing extinction worldwide (Diaz et al. 2019). Species’ range size is particularly important in this context because it influences extinction risk (Purvis et al. 2000, Gaston & Fuller 2009), but the causes underlying the wide natural variation in range size r...

The tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) has been divided into several biogeographic provinces separated by two types of habitat gaps: stretches of sandy shoreline that separate rocky reefs on the mainland (Sinaloan and Central American gaps) and expanses of deep ocean between offshore TEP islands and the mainland. Those gaps are known to influence the d...

Tropical deep reefs (~40–300 m) are diverse ecosystems that serve as habitats for diverse communities of reef-associated fishes. Deep-reef fish communities are taxonomically and ecologically distinct from those on shallow reefs, but like those on shallow reefs, they are home to a species-rich assemblage of small, cryptobenthic reef fishes, includin...

Centropristes fusculus Poey, 1861 historically has variously and somewhat perplexingly been assigned to Centropristis Cuvier, 1829, Prionodes Jenyns, 1840, and Serranus Cuvier, 1816. Here, we provide evidence from comparisons of morphology, ecology, and sexual systems for its inclusion in Serranus and redescribe the species based on the holotype an...

We documented the nearshore ray-finned fishes in Puerto Morelos Reef National Park (PMRNP) by sampling 57 localities, including rocky intertidal pools, sandy bottoms, Thalassia beds, coral reefs, artificial reefs, karstic-slab bottoms, demersal-pelagic areas, and sessile-Sargassum patches. We recorded seven species new to Caribbean Mexican waters a...

Interoceanic canals can facilitate biological invasions as they connect the world's oceans and remove dispersal barriers between bioregions. As a consequence, multiple opportunities for biotic exchange arise and the resulting establishment of migrant species often causes adverse ecological and economic impacts. The Panama Canal is a key region for...

In preparation for the IUCN Redlist Assessment for the fishes of the Galapagos Archipelago, we have reviewed the literature to date and surveyed the observations of the various experts and naturalists most familiar with the region. Using this information, we have assembled a list of fishes know to occur on the islands (Table 1). We define the area...

Review of the image plates shows that an image of Rypticus subbifrenatus was incorrectly identified as that of its similarly colored congener R. carpenter . Hence the latter was deleted from the St. John-Thomas inventory. In addition, an image of the blenniid fish Hypsoblennius exstochilus was obtained from St. Thomas, and it is now added to that i...

The US Virgin Islands (USVI) include St. John and St. Thomas on the Puerto Rican Platform (PRP) and St. Croix, isolated by 2000 m deep water 45 km south of that platform. Previous inventories of the marine fishes of these islands include a comprehensive 2014 checklist of the fishes of St. Croix and a list of the fishes of the PRP produced in 2000....

The Panamic Clingfish Gobiesox adustus is widely distributed in the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP), from the central Gulf of California, Mexico to Ecuador, including the oceanic Revillagigedo Archipelago, and Isla del Coco. This cryptobenthic species is restricted to very shallow rocky-reef habitats. Here, we used one mitochondrial and three nuclea...

Fish communities on tropical deep reefs are dominated by species that belong to families primarily composed of shallow-water species. Collections of deep-reef fishes via submersibles have allowed us to include these deep-reef species in molecular phylogenies, providing insights into the timing and frequency of invasions from shallow to deep reefs....

Fish communities on tropical deep reefs are dominated by species that belong to families primarily composed of shallow-water species. Collections of deep-reef fishes via submersibles have allowed us to include these deep-reef species in molecular phylogenies, providing insights into the timing and frequency of invasions from shallow to deep reefs....

Aim Biogeographic history and variation in modern environmental conditions can greatly influence local and regional community structure and, more generally, ecosystem functioning. This is clearly exemplified at the Isthmus of Panama where marine communities and environments from the Caribbean Sea and the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean differ despit...

Understanding the diversity and ecology of deep-reef fishes is challenging. Due to intensive and widely dispersed sampling, the Greater Caribbean (GC) fauna of species found on shallow reefs is much better characterized than the fauna of deep-reef species restricted to mesophotic (40–130 m) and rariphotic (130–300 m) depths. Our knowledge about dee...

The hamlets (Hypoplectrus spp., Perciformes: Serranidae) constitute a distinctive model system for the study of a variety of ecological and evolutionary processes including the evolution and maintenance of simultaneous hermaphroditism and egg trading, sex allocation, sexual selection, social-trap, mimicry, dispersal, speciation, and adaptive radiat...

Integrating both morphological and genetic data, we describe Squatina mapama, a new species of the angel shark genus Squatina, found on the upper continental slope off the Caribbean coast of Panama. Distinguishing characters of S. mapama include a wider pectoral and pelvic span; a shorter head length; a narrower mouth; short fringed nasal flaps and...

The well-cataloged marine fish fauna of the Galapagos Islands includes eight of the 12 species of snappers (Lutjanidae) found in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. A recent recreational scuba dive in the Galapagos produced photographs of an additional snapper species, Lutjanus inermis (Peters, 1869), which was sufficiently common as to likely have a rec...

The reef-fish fauna of the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) includes 12 species of surgeonfishes (Acanthuridae), five of them in the genus Acanthurus . Recent recreational scuba diving at Isla Darwin in the Galapagos archipelago produced photographs of adults of an additional species of Acanthurus , A. mata (Cuvier, 1829), for which there are no prev...

Marine species that are widely distributed in the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) has served as a model for studying biogeographic patterns resulting from the effects of intraregional habitat discontinuities and oceanographic processes on the diversification and evolution of cryptobenthic reef fishes. Tomicodon petersii, a clingfish (Gobiesocidae) e...

PARTICIPANTS: D. Ross Robertson, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panamá John Earle, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii Alonso González C., Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas de Noreste, La Paz, BCS, México John Earle, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii Eduardo Balart, Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas de Noreste, La Paz, BCS, Méxi...

The threat posed by invasive non-native species worldwide requires a global approach to identify which introduced species are likely to pose an elevated risk of impact to native species and ecosystems. To inform policy, stakeholders and management decisions on global threats to aquatic ecosystems, 195 assessors representing 120 risk assessment area...

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Shipping corridors can be hotspots for biological invasions as they connect the world’s oceans and dissolve dispersal barriers between these aquatic systems. As a consequence, multiple opportunities for biotic exchange arise and the resulting establishment of non-native species often causes adverse ecological and economic impacts. In this study, a...

The Indo-West Pacific (IWP) damselfish Neopomacentrus cyanomos was first found in the Atlantic Ocean in 2013, on reefs in Mexico in the southwest Gulf of Mexico (GoMx). By 2018 it was known throughout most of the GoMx, but nowhere else in the Atlantic. Evidence indicates it was introduced to the GoMx by offshore petroleum infrastructure moved in wa...

Background: In the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP), four species of parrotfishes with complex phylogeographic histories co-occur in sympatry on rocky reefs from Baja California to Ecuador: Scarus compressus, S. ghobban, S. perrico, and S. rubroviolaceus. The most divergent, S. perrico, separated from a Central Indo-Pacific ancestor in the late Mioc...

Initially described in 1882, Chromis enchrysurus , the Yellowtail Reeffish, was redescribed in 1982 to account for an observed color morph that possesses a white tail instead of a yellow one, but morphological and geographic boundaries between the two color morphs were not well understood. Taking advantage of newly collected material from submersib...

Sint Eustatius (Statia) is a 21 km ² island situated in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. The most recent published sources of information on that island’s marine fish fauna is in two non-governmental organization reports from 2015–17 related to the formation of a marine reserve. The species-list in the 2017 report was based on field research in 2013...

The non-native Indo-West Pacific (IWP) damselfish Neopomacentrus cyanomos has two, recently discovered, isolated Northwest Atlantic (NWA) populations separated by ~ 3000 km of the Caribbean Sea. One of them spans the southern and northern Gulf of Mexico (GoMx) and the other is at Trinidad, in the southeast Caribbean. We compared DNA (CO1) sequences...

Nibblers (family Girellidae) are reef fishes that are mostly distributed in the Indo-Pacific, with one exception: Girella stuebeli, which is found in the Cabo Verde Archipelago, in the Atlantic Ocean. We capitalized on this unusual distribution to study the evolutionary history of the girellids, and determine the relationship between G. stuebeli an...

The checklist by Robertson et al. (2017) of fishes from the tropical eastern Pacific included information on three members of the family Triglidae: Bellator loxias (Jordan, 1897), Prionotus ruscarius and P. stephanophrys Lockington, 1881. Unfortunately, the identification of four specimens as P. ruscarius is incorrect, as they are Bellator gymnoste...

Recent engineered expansions of the Panama and Suez canals have accelerated the introduction of non-native marine fishes and other organisms between their adjacent waters. Measures to prevent further invasions through canals should be incorporated into global shipping policies, as well as through local efforts.

There is a widespread need for reliable biodiversity databases for science and conservation. Among the many public databases available, we lack guidance as to how their data quality varies. Here, we compare species distribution data for a well known regional reef fish fauna extracted from five global online databases that supply “as is” data (GBIF,...

The abundance of the alien, Indo-Pacific damselfish Neopomacentrus cyanomos on an oil-loading platform in the southwest Gulf of Mexico indicates that widely distributed platforms could facilitate the expansion of its geographic range across the western and northern fringes of the Gulf. From there it likely will spread to other areas of the Greater...

The Regal Demoiselle, a planktivorous damselfish native to reefs of the Indo-West Pacific, was first found in the Atlantic on reefs at Coatzacoalcos in the southwest Gulf of Mexico in 2013. In 2014 it was observed on reefs in the MPA adjacent to Veracruz city, ~150 km from the Coatzacoalcos reefs. In 2017 a retired mexican naval ship was sunk as an...

Data on marine and brackish-water fishes recorded in the area of the Parque Nacional Sistema Arrecifal Veracruzano in the southwest Gulf of Mexico were extracted from online aggregators of georeferenced location records, the recent ichthyological literature reviewed, and collections and observations made to provide a more complete faunal inventory...

The alien Indo-Pacific damselfish, Neopomacentrus cyanomos, at Trinidad. D Ross Robertson, Kelly Kingon The Regal Demoiselle, Neopomacentrus cyanomos, is a common inhabitant of coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific. In mid-2013 this species was first discovered (and found to be widely distributed) on coral reefs in the southwest corner of the Gulf of M...

Little is known about ecosystem structure and nutrient flux in the pelagic zone of seasonal upwelling systems in the tropics, despite their global importance to marine production. The Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) is responsible for around 10% of global ocean productivity, largely due to wind-driven seasonal upwelling areas between Mexico and Pana...

The opening of the Panama Canal ~ 100 years ago created a migration pathway between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean for euryhaline marine organisms that can cope with passage through 65 km of freshwater. The Atlantic Tarpon, Megalops atlanticus, a prized recreational-fishery species in its native geographic range, where it is considered “Vu...

A series of small emergent coral reefs and shallow, submerged coralliferous banks are scattered along the western edge of Campeche Bank (southwest Gulf of Mexico), 150-200 km offshore from the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Here a reasonably comprehensive, annotated checklist of reef-associated fishes for one reef, Cayo Arcas (expanded from 162 to 209...

A new species of Lipogramma is described from submersible collections at 122–165 m depth off the coast of Roatan, Honduras, in the western Caribbean. The new species is distinguished from all other species in the genus by its bright blue coloration on the head, nape, and dorsal portion of the trunk beneath the spinous dorsal fin, a prominent round...

From 2006 to date the submersible DeepSee has been used to study the deep waters in and around Isla del Coco National Park, Costa Rica. Over these years, images and samples have been collected at depths between 50 and 450 m. Here we present a catalogue of bony fishes recorded by the submersible in deep waters of Isla del Coco, 500 km south-southwes...

Habitat discontinuities, temperature gradients, upwelling systems, and ocean currents, gyres and fronts, can affect distributions of species with narrow environmental tolerance or motility and influence the dispersal of pelagic larvae, with effects ranging from the isolation of adjacent populations to connections between them. The coast of the Trop...

Mariculture of Cobia (Rachycentron canadum) has become popular in various regions of the world due to the species’ hardiness, fast growth and high market value. Despite not being native to the Eastern Pacific, Cobia was introduced for offshore sea-cage aquaculture in Ecuador in 2015, with the first Cobia escape occurring there several months after...

We investigated a pantropical sub-family and genus of damselfishes, the sergeant-majors (Pomacentridae: Abudefdufinae: Abudefduf ), to identify the tempo and mechanisms of speciation in the lineage. We examined sequence capture data from 500 loci and 20 species, with multiple individuals sampled from across the geographic ranges of widespread speci...

Sample name, location, number of assembled contigs and UCEs with indication if used in Bayesian time tree analysis For each sample included in analyses the species name and unique identifier are given. We also indicate the collection information associated with each sample and how many contigs and UCEs were assembled, and if the sample was included...

Range Map 1 - Distribution of A. saxatilis and A. vaigiensis lineages

Calibration points for divergence time estimation Characteristics and sources for calibrations used for divergence time estimation.

Maximum likelihood phylogeny of Abudefduf with individual identifiers A maximum likelihood phylogenetic of Abudefduf generated from partitioned analysis of 361 ultraconserved element (UCE) loci. An optimal partitioning strategy was implemented (Lanfear et al., 2014; Lanfear et al., 2012) . Each partition was modeled under the General Time Reversibl...

Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree of Abudefduf taurus and A. concolor samples examined for this study A maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree of Abudefduf taurus and A. concolor samples examined for this study. The tree was generated from 118 ultraconserved element (UCE) loci modeled under three partitions as defined by PartitionFinder (see Metho...

Range Map 3 - Distribution of A. bengalensis, A. lorenzi, A. natalensis, and A. cf. vaigiensis Kiritimati

Sequence data, PartitionFinder files and tree files