{"id":251329,"date":"2018-01-12T13:19:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T15:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=251329\/"},"modified":"2018-01-12T13:19:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T15:19:03","slug":"deep-sea-alliances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/deep-sea-alliances\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep sea alliances"},"content":{"rendered":"
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IVAN SAZIMA<\/span><\/a> Elacatinus phthirophagus (yellow and black)<\/em> cleaning Cephalopholis fulva<\/em>IVAN SAZIMA<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The waters of the Rocas atoll, 267 km from Natal, Rio Grande do Norte State in Brazil, is home to one of the most striking phenomena seen in coral reefs: when predatory fish give themselves moments of respite and receive cleaning services from other fish and shrimp. In one of the most extensive surveys ever performed on the atoll, biologists from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) identified eight cleaners\u2014six fish and two species of shrimp\u2014within the biological conservation area. The region is closed to the public and covers an area of \u200b\u200b5.5 square quilometers (km2<\/sup>).<\/p>\n

Cleaner fish specialize in eating parasites, diseased tissues, or mucus from larger fish and turtles, species which experts refer to as the clients <\/em>of cleaner fish. \u201cAs a result of these interactions, clients maintain their health and the cleaner gets food, but both sides have had to evolve to recognize each other and to not attack each other during the cleaning process,\u201d summarizes Colombian biologist Juan Pablo Quimbayo Agreda, a researcher from UFSC. He is part of the Brazilian Marine Biodiversity Research Network (SISBIOTA-MAR), which has brought together 30 researchers from nine institutions in order to study the biodiversity of Brazil\u2019s four oceanic islands: the Rocas atoll, the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, the S\u00e3o Pedro and S\u00e3o Paulo archipelago, and the Trindade and Martim Vaz archipelago.<\/p>\n

\u201cCleaner fish evolved from other fish that ate small crustaceans and other invertebrates,\u201d says biologist Carlos Ferreira, a professor at Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and one of the coordinators of SISBIOTA-MAR. He explains that, by specializing in eating parasites, a relatively scarce food source, fish that spend most of their lives in reefs \u201cavoid competition for other foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2016, under the guidance of Ferreira and biologists S\u00e9rgio Floeter of UFSC and Ivan Sazima of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Quimbayo and biologists Lucas Nunes and Renan Ozekoski, also from SISBIOTA-MAR, observed 318 interactions between fish at depths ranging from 1 meter (m) to 5 m for 44 hours over 22 days.<\/p>\n

Two species endemic to the region were the most active: the Noronha wrasse (Thalassoma noronhanum<\/em>), which reaches 12 cm in adulthood, and the Noronha cleaner goby (Elacatinus phthirophagus<\/em>), which can reach up to 4 cm. The wrasse participated in 75% of the cleanings and served the largest variety of client species: 18 out of the 22 total
\nfish species and one turtle species that sought the cleaners\u2019 services. In an article published this July in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes<\/em>, the biologists attribute the high number of cleaning sessions to the fact that most of the clients (82%) are herbivores; it is important to note that the wrasse was also found to be the most abundant species in the area.<\/p>\n

The three biologists observed peculiar behaviors among the cleaner fish in the atoll. Around Fernando de Noronha, only juvenile wrasses feed on the parasites of other fish, but in the atoll, this habit is also maintained among adults. In the atoll, the wrasses avoid getting too close to species that could eat them. \u201cWe assume that this species can somehow identify which species are dangerous\u2014probably through an evolutionary process that eliminated more reckless individuals,\u201d says Quimbayo.<\/p>\n

The goby was found to have a flexible diet, abandoning the herbivorous habits it maintains in other places: in the atoll, it feeds on worms, even risking its life by approaching carnivorous clients such as nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum<\/em>), which can grow to as much as 4 m in length and 100 kg in weight. In a study from August 2010 to April 2015 around Malpelo Island, located 400 km west of the Colombian coast, Quimbayo identified five species of fish acting as cleaners, none of which specialized in this activity as much as those in the atoll. In just over half (56%) of the 120 interactions, the clients were predatory species such as groupers, stingrays, and sharks.<\/p>\n

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Juan Quimbayo<\/span><\/a> The Lysmata<\/em> shrimp with white antennae between the ventral fins of a Holocentrus<\/em>Juan Quimbayo<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Cleaning Services<\/strong>
\nMore frequent early and late in the day, the cleanings can last from a few seconds to several minutes. Cleaning sessions usually take place in specific spaces, known as \u201ccleaning stations,\u201d which are located near rocks or coral, and the fish follow their own rituals (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP, issue No. 79<\/em><\/a>). Clients enter the cleaning stations and exhibit more vivid colors or swim face down to indicate that they will allow for a cleaning and will not attack. \u201cThey are in a buffer zone; nobody is going to eat anybody,\u201d reports Quimbayo. Through his observations, he has determined that cleaner fish should not push their luck so as not to risk being eaten during the cleaning service. \u201cIf the cleaner fish chews off a piece of skin or mucus, the client may not like it and may react with a sharp bite.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are 208 cleaner fish species circulating in and around the bays and islands of the world. They make up approximately 3% of the 6,500 species of reef fish and less than 1% of the world’s 30,000 fish species, according to a survey organized by David Brendan Vaughan of James Cook University in Australia, published in 2016 in the journal Fish and Fisheries<\/em>. Cleaner shrimp are even less common. Of the 51 known species, two live in the atoll: Lysmata grabhami<\/em>, with white antennae up to 6 cm in length; and Stenopus hispidus<\/em>, with a red-and-white-striped body and white antennae, that grows up to 10 cm in length. They accounted for only 3.7% and 2.7% of all recorded cleaning episodes, respectively, and offered services mainly when cleaner fish were not around. These observations were similar to Quimbayo\u2019s previous findings in a 2012 study on the islands of Cape Verde and S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe off the coast of Africa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Islands at Risk<\/strong>
\nThe SISBIOTA-MAR surveys indicate that the Rocas atoll is the most well preserved of the four Brazilian oceanic islands, since it is a biological reserve with access granted only to researchers. \u201cEven in Fernando de Noronha, which has the status of a national park, the protected area sustains a growing human population, and there is an area outside the park where activities such as fishing are allowed,\u201d Ferreira notes. He also explains that the fish in the protected area can swim to the unprotected area, where they are caught.<\/p>\n

Ferreira notes that, in the S\u00e3o Pedro and S\u00e3o Paulo archipelago, located 1,000 km from Natal, there are no longer any sharks, and schools of tuna have been greatly reduced due to overfishing. In recent years, the island of Trindade, located 1,200 km east of Vit\u00f3ria, Esp\u00edrito Santo State, has suffered from underwater fishing \u201cbecause it has no protection status,\u201d he explains. In August of this year, on the fifth expedition for the project, the SISBIOTA-MAR team intends to return to Trindade for their annual monitoring of marine organism communities.<\/p>\n

Scientific articles<\/em>
\nQUIMBAYO, JP et al<\/em>.\u00a0 Cleaning interactions at the only atoll in the South Atlantic<\/a>. Environmental Biology of Fishes<\/strong>. V. 100, No. 7, p. 865\u201373. 2017.
\nVAUGHAN, DB et al<\/em>. Cleaner fishes and shrimp diversity and re-evaluation of cleaning symbioses<\/a>. Fish and Fisheries<\/strong>. V. 18, p. 698\u2013716. 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleaner fish obtain food by removing parasites from larger fish ","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[224,252,266],"coauthors":[5968],"class_list":["post-251329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-ecology","tag-oceanography","tag-zoology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251329"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=251329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}