Distribution of Marine Fishes of the World and Factors Limiting Their Distribution in Different Biological Zones

Oceans cover approximately 70 percent of the earth's surface. Marine is specific to those things in and around ocean or sea water. Marine life encompasses a broad range of plants and animals include marine fishes living in various ocean ecological systems throughout the world. Numerous things can affect marine fishes, including pollution, temperature, ocean currents and the sea's chemical balance.

The study of fish zoogeography is alternately one of the most fascinating and one of the most frustrating areas of ichthyology. It is fascinating because the explanation of the world patterns of fish distribution requires putting together knowledge from many other areas of ichthyology, such as ecology, physiology, systematic and palaeontology, as well as from other disciplines such as geology and biogeography. It is frustrating, however, because so much of our knowledge of these areas, is nonexistent, fragmented, or incomplete, so that many attempt to explain fish distribution patterns, particularly over large areas, is bound to contain gaps that have to be bridge with guesswork.

For marine fishes, they mainly have broad distribution patterns and seem to be related to oceanographic features, to the positions of continents, and to the historic effects of Pleistocene events. As we know, most marine fishes are shallow-water species located on the rims of land masses and undoubtedly plate tectonics play important role in the distribution of marine fishes but, because of the lack of knowledge in that subject, it had been uncounted. Now, there are two rules that hold up the basics of marine fishes distribution patterns that are that fish species richness increases as latitude decreases and that species richness decrease with depth.

Factors affecting distribution and abundance

Plate Tectonics (Continental Drift) During the Permian Period 225 million years ago, according to current models of paleogeography, all land was joined into a larger mass called Pangaea. During this time, the major groups of organisms such as fishes first evolved. They then spread throughout this supercontinent. As geologic processes caused the Earth's plates to split apart, Pangaea broke apart, and the continents formed and moved across the globe, taking their resident species with them. This caused these species to be isolated from one another and to evolve unique characteristics and DNA, leading to speciation.

Natural Oceanic Variation The importance of environmental changes in determining the distribution of fish has been recognized as an important study. Part of this has been as the result of studies on the impact of El Nio on fish abundance and distribution in the Pacific and the observation on most fish species in various parts of the world appear to be increasing and decreasing in synchrony. Some species are far more susceptible to environmental influences than others. In some cases, relatively small changes in ocean climate can lead to major changes in a species abundance.

Tropical reef fishes and deepsea fishes

Physical factors Important physical factors include temperature, light, and ocean currents. Temperature. This factor has a strong relationship to the distribution pattern of epipelagic and deepsea fishes. The 8C to 10C isotherm, for example, loosely separates the cold ocean water

dominated by salmon and warm ocean water that dominated by tunas and billfish. Changes in average seawater even only 1C can cause dramatic changes in both fish species and abundance. In deepsea water, temperature rather stable, between 4C and 8C, but the changes of temperature still give a high impact on the distribution pattern. Temperature is important because it interacts with other physical and chemical factors and can affect processes such as predation and competition. For example, the El Nino event, as the ocean warms up a few degrees off northern California, salmon fisheries decline and fishery for albacore (Thunnus alalunga) develops.

Light. As most epipelagic fish is visual feeders, so light is also important factors. Clear water best for tuna however if it too clear, it is probably too little food contain. On the other hand, productive waters may turbid as result of plankton blooms thus favor for filter feeders planktivores as well as piscivores. For deepsea habitat, in Mesopelagic zones, the movement of fish that make vertical migrations are cued to light. Light is also important because vision is the principal cue that fish use for shoaling.

Ocean Currents. Ocean currents also play a major role in both concentrating and dispersing fish. Fish distribution may be bounded by current edges that form distinct, if fluctuating, boundaries, to oceanic regions. At times, this boundaries are even visible, but more typically they are detectable as rapid changes in temperature, salinity, and turbidity. Many epipelagic fishes uses water currents for reproduction, spawning upstream so that the eggs and young will drift into suitable areas for feeding and eventually wind up in the adult feeding areas.

Chemical factors The surface waters of the oceans as well as the deepsea ocean are well mixed and well oxygenated, so it is seldom that salinity or oxygen has much effect on the distribution of epipelagic and deepsea fish. Pollutants are chemical factors that may also be affecting

populations in unknown ways. However, effect of pollutants so far have been largely masked by natural fluctuations in fish populations in response to changing oceanic conditions, coupled with heavy exploitation by humans.

Biological factors Competition, predation and symbiosis undoubtedly are all important in regulating the distribution of fish in marine epipelagic zones.

Competition. Occur among member of the same species, these appears to be on of more important processes regulating the size of epipelagic fish populations, allowing each population to adapt to changing oceanographic conditions and exploitation. Interspecific competition for specific food among adult fish leads to limited growth and smaller sizes and hence to decrease fecundity. If each species appears to have a competition advantage over the other, under appropriate oceanic conditions, so the dominant species may change with time. The changes accompanied by many other oceanic and biological changes.

Predation. This factor has powerful influence on epipelagic fish populations and interacts strongly with oceanic conditions. The influence is often very direct. For example, the seasonal arrival of a large number of voracious bluefish on the Atlantic coast on North America results in a decline in the abundance of anchovies and sandlances on which they feed. On the other hand, the influences in predator and prey populations on each other are buffered somewhat by the fact that most predators are capable of preying on wide range of organisms and will switch prey if the population of one prey species declines.

Sybiosis. The factor are common among the epipelagic fish. One example is multispecies shoaling. Shoals of fish made up more than one species are common, especially among the tunas and cluepids. Presumely much of the advantage of such relationships is an increase in shoal size, which results in increased protection from predators or increased probability of locating a patch of prey.