Life-history traits facilitate the population success of the sergeant major Abudefduf saxatilis (Linnaeus, 1758, Perciformes: Pomacentridae) in the Caribbean Sea

ABSTRACT

Trade-offs among life-history traits (e.g. growth, reproduction, and survival) are fundamental to the population success of living beings in the wild. This study describes the life-history traits of the sergeant major, Abudefduf saxatilis, one of those fishes most abundant in the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea. The reproductive biology, age, growth, and abundance of a particular population of A. saxatilis from Mexico was explored using 12 monthly samplings to collect 414 specimens, and abundance monitoring through visual censuses for age-based demographic analysis. Our results indicated that A. saxatilis would have an opportunistic strategy with a type II survivorship curve since the studied population was characterized by fast growth, maturation at intermediate sizes (≈11 cm L_T or 2.5 yrs. old), with batch spawning and indeterminate fecundity, protracted spawning season (January to September), high abundance of recruits, low instantaneous natural mortality (M = 0.114 year ⁻¹), high life expectancy at birth (e₀ ≈ 4.7 yrs.) and maturity (e_α ≈ 2.8 yrs.), and high annual survival of adults and high survival to maturity ($l_{{\propto }_{mat}}=75.0\text{\%}$). All these life-history traits facilitate the population success of A. saxatilis, showing a high reproductive effort and a rapid population turnover, making this species an efficient colonizer.

KEYWORDS:

• Sergeant major
• Abudefduf saxatilis
• reproductive traits
• growth traits
• age-based demographic

Acknowledgements

We thank the Department of Marine Biology of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY) for providing the laboratory and equipment necessary to conduct the research. Finally, the authors greatly appreciate all comments and suggestions made by the reviewers that help to improve the revised version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data supporting this study’s findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).