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Vol. 42 No. 1, 2003
Coral Reef Fishes of Indonesia
Gerald
R. Allen1,2,* and Mohammed Adrim3
1Western
Australian Museum, Francis Street, Perth, WA 6000, Australia
2Conservation International, 1 Dreyer Road,
Roleystone, WA 6111, Australia
3Pusat Penelitian dan Pengembangan Oseanologi - LIPI,
Box 580 DAK, Jakarta 11001, Indonesia
Gerald
R. Allen and Mohammed Adrim (2003) The Indonesian Archipelago
has an extensive history of ichthyological exploration dating back to
visits by the French vessels L'Uranie
(1818-1819), La Coquille
(1823),and L'Astrolabe (1826).
Thanks largely to the exhaustive works of Pieter Bleeker(1819-1878), an
extensive knowledge of Indonesian fishes existed at the beginning of
the last century. Weber and de Beaufort continued to build on this
foundation in their landmark publication Fishes of the Indo-Australian
Archipelago, published in 11 volumes between 1911 and 1962. By the time
the last volume was published, it was evident that the East Indian
region and Indonesia in particular was endowed with the world's richest
coral reef fauna. Although this claim has been confirmed by recent
studies of several families and genera, there has been no comprehensive
study of the Indonesian reef fish fauna in recent times. The present
work, which includes a checklist, provides a detailed analysis. The
current reef fauna consists of 2057 species belonging to 113 families.
The 10 most-speciose groups, which account for approximately 56% of the
fauna, are the Gobiidae (272 species), Labridae (178), Pomacentridae
(152), Apogonidae (114), Blenniidae (107), Serranidae (102), Muraenidae
(61), Syngnathidae (61), Chaetodontidae (59), and Lutjanidae (43). A
zoogeographic analysis reveals that the majority (about 39%) of species
are widely distributed either in the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-West and
central Pacific, 23% are primarily distributed in the western and
central Pacific, 15% (excluding endemics) range across the
Indo-Australian Archipelago or portions of this region, 5% have
primarily Indian Ocean ranges, and 4.7% are endemic to Indonesia.
Analysis of current distributions indicates the presence of at least 4
regional“hotspots”or centers of endemism including the West Nusa
Tenggara Is., East Nusa Tengara Is., northeastern Sulawesi (and
offshore islands), and Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). In addition, there
are 8 localized centers within these 4 regions: Flores, Togean Is.,
western and northern Sumatra, Komodo, Raja Ampat Is., Molucca Is., Java
Sea, and Banggai Is. Most of the endemics (about 75%) are included in
only 8 families: Pseudochromidae, Blenniidae, Pomacentridae,
Apogonidae, Labridae,Syngnathidae, Gobiidae, and Callionymidae.
Possible key factors for the proliferation of coral reef species in the
East Indian region (i.e., Indonesia and surrounding areas) include its
huge continuous area and abundance of island “stepping stones” (forming
a buffer against extinction), the merging of disparate geological and
biological elements due to tectonic activity, a long history of warm
sea temperatures, and fluctuating sea levels during past glacial
periods that formed effective isolating barriers and allowed the
evolution of geminate species. Biological factors also appear to be
significant. Numerous species with a reduced pelagic larval period have
apparently evolved and accumulated in the region. There also appears to
be an accumulation of species that probably evolved in peripheral
regions and were subsequently conveyed to the East Indies by ocean
currents. A total of 3764 coral reef-associated fishes is estimated for
the entire Indo-Pacific region based on a regression formula, utilizing
the number of species in 6 indicator families: Chaetodontidae,
Pomacanthidae, Pomacentridae, Labridae, Scaridae, and Acanthuridae.
Assuming that this estimate is accurate, at least 1/2 of the
Indo-Pacific species are represented in Indonesian seas.
Key words: Indo-Pacific,
Ichthyology, Endemism, Zoogeography, Checklist.
*Correspondence: Tel: 618-94961143. Fax: 618-93976985. E-mail:
tropical_reef@bigpond.com
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