RESEARCH ARTICLE Repeated cyclone events reveal potential causes of sociality in coral-dwelling Gobiodon fishes Martin L. Hing1*, O. Selma Klanten2, Mark Dowton3, Kylie R. Brown4, Marian Y. L. Wong1 1 Centre for Sustainable Ecosystems Solutions, School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, 2 Fish Ecology Laboratory, School of Life Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 3 Centre for Medical and Molecular Bioscience, School of Biological Sciences, University a1111111111 of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, 4 Independent Researcher, Sanctuary Point, NSW, Australia a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract Social organization is a key factor influencing a species' foraging and reproduction, which may ultimately affect their survival and ability to recover from catastrophic disturbance. OPEN ACCESS Severe weather events such as cyclones can have devastating impacts to the physical Citation: Hing ML, Klanten OS, Dowton M, Brown structure of coral reefs and on the abundance and distribution of its faunal communities. KR, Wong MYL (2018) Repeated cyclone events Despite the importance of social organization to a species' survival, relatively little is known reveal potential causes of sociality in coral-dwelling Gobiodon fishes. PLoS ONE 13(9): e0202407. about how major disturbances such as tropical cyclones may affect social structures or how https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202407 different social strategies affect a species' ability to cope with disturbance. We sampled Editor: Heather M. Patterson, Department of group sizes and coral sizes of group-forming and pair-forming species of the Gobiid genus Agriculture and Water Resources, AUSTRALIA Gobiodon at Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, before and after two successive Received: December 15, 2017 category 4 tropical cyclones.