Visual Biology of Hawaiian Coral Reef Fishes. III. Environmental Light and an Integrated Approach to the Ecology of Reef Fish Vision

Abstract In the previous two papers in this three-part series, we have examined visual pigments, ocular media transmission, and colors of the coral reef fish of Hawaii. This paper first details aspects of the light field and background colors at the microhabitat level on Hawaiian reefs and does so from the perspective and scale of fish living on the reef. Second, information from all three papers is combined in an attempt to examine trends in the visual ecology of reef inhabitants. Our goal is to begin to see fish the way they appear to other fish. Observations resulting from the combination of results in all three papers include the following. Yellow and blue colors on their own are strikingly well matched to backgrounds on the reef such as coral and bodies of horizontally viewed water. These colors, therefore, depending on context, may be important in camouflage as well as conspicuousness. The spectral characteristics of fish colors are correlated to the known spectral sensitivities in reef fish single ...