Smell of leaves brings reef fishes back to islands

Picture: Creative Commons. Coral reef fish rely on the smell of leaves to find their way home, according to research published in the most recent issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Danielle Dixson and coworkers studied the clownfish Amphiprion percula in the coral reefs surrounding offshore islands in Papua New Guinea, noting from their survey results that host anemones and the clownfish are particularly abundant in shallow water beneath overhanging rainforest vegetation. Basing their work in the island of New Britain, the authors carried out a series of experiments using paired-choice flumes (in chambers) to evaluate the potential role of water-borne olfactory cues in finding islands. Newly settled juvenile clownfish were used in the experiments and in each experiment, a single individual... [read full story]