................................................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES .........................

Despite the ubiquity of obligate mutualisms on coral reef ecosystems, little is known about the evolution of many participating species. The shrimp gobies, known primarily from the coral reef habitats of the Indo-Pacific, are small benthic fishes that participate in a remarkable mutualism with alpheid shrimp. In this mutualism, the shrimp build and maintain a burrow that is guarded by the goby,...

Various predator-prey, host-pathogen, and competitive interactions can combine to cause density dependence in population growth. Despite this possibility, most empirical tests for density-dependent interactions have focused on single mechanisms. Here we tested the hypothesis that two mechanisms of density dependence, parasitism and a shortage of refuges, jointly influence the strength of densit...

Predation risk is high for the many small coral reef fishes, requiring successful sheltering or other predator defence mechanisms. Coral-dwelling gobies of the genus Gobiodon live in close association with scleractinian corals of the genus Acropora. Earlier studies indicated that the low movement frequency of adult fishes and the development of skin toxins (crinotoxicity) are predation avoidanc...

Endemic Ponto-Caspian gobies include a flock of 24 "neogobiin" species (containing the nominal genera and subgenera Apollonia, Babka, Neogobius, Mesogobius, Ponticola, and Proterorhinus; Teleostei: Gobiidae), of which a large proportion (5 species; 21%) recently escaped to invade other freshwater Eurasian systems and the North American Great Lakes. We provide its first comprehensive phylogeneti...

Fishborne trematode (FBT) metacercariae were investigated in yellowfin goby, Acanthogobius flavimanus, collected from Shinan-gun and Muan-gun, Jeollanam-do (province), Korea. All collected fishes were examined using the artificial digestion method. In all of 15 gobies from Aphae-myeon in Shinan-gun, metacercariae of Stictodora spp. (334 metacercariae/fish), Heterophyes nocens (153/fish), and He...

The teleost family Gobiidae includes at least 1120 described species of fishes, distributed worldwide in both tropical and temperate habitats. The majority of gobies inhabit marine environments, in particular Old World coral reefs. However, a radiation of gobiids inhabits the rivers and near-shore habitats of Europe and Asia, and a variety of genera are also found in the seas of the New World. ...

The infection status of mullets Mugil cephalus (n = 139) and gobies (n = 35) Acanthogobius flavimanus with metacercariae of Heterophyes nocens and Pygidiopsis summa was examined in 11 western, southern, and eastern coastal areas of the Republic of Korea, using a digestion technique. Heterophyid metacercariae were highly prevalent in mullets from western and southern coastal areas; Shinan-gun (1...

Title of Document: NAKED GOBIES (GOBIOSOMA BOSC) AS INDICATORS OF OYSTER REEF RESTORATION SUCCESS Terra M Lederhouse, M.S., 2009 Directed By: Dr. Kennedy T. Paynter, Director, Marine and Estuarine Environmental Sciences Naked gobies (Gobiosoma bosc) are the most abundant resident fish on oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay and serve as a critical trophic link between the benthic and pelagic comm...

An invasive benthivorous fish, the Eurasian round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) is abundant throughout the lower Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River system. We examined the round goby’s potential to alter benthic communities on cobble substrates in the upper St. Lawrence River. During the summers of 2008 and 2009, macroinvertebrates and benthic algae were sampled across sites with varying goby den...