There are several fish species that lay adhesive egg masses on hard substrates or on macroalgae in the shallow nearshore subtidal. For instance, the lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) lays large masses of adhesive eggs in areas with rock crevices, exposed to strong currents. The surf smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus pretiosus) spawns on pea-sized gravel of protected beaches. The adhesive egg masses found most frequently in the shallow nearshore subtidal belong to the Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi). The herring lay masses of adhesive eggs primarily on macroalgae (Hart 1980).

Hi Trond! I am studying gobies also but would rather think that clingfishes may deposit their eggs. There one or more species in the Mediterranean put their eggs on seagrass, so they may probably even use algae. I am not sure whether they do the care like gobies do? In coral reefs, it may be gobies of the genus Pleurosicya that spawn on seagrass or maybe even algae. Cheers, Juergen

Hi again! Sorry for the typos in my last message. You can check the following paper for some species that may spawn on plants. I cannot find it at the moment ...

Larson, H.K. 1990. A revision of the commensal gobiid fish genera Pleurosicya

and Luposicya (Gobiidae), with a description of eight new species of

Pleurosicya and discussion of related genera. The Beagle 7: 1-53

In the attached chapter you can find some information on parental care and territoriality behaviour for many NE Atlantic fish species. Although it doesn't specify where eggs are laid, it might be a good starting point (I don't believe there are many reef fish laying adhesive eggs on algae in this region... There are probably more than one, but I really can't remember any species other that G. flavescens). There is also the particular case of nest-building fish, that lay eggs on algae nests, such as Symphodus melops, S. roissali, Centrolabrus exoletus, and C. caeruleus. The thing is G. flavescens occupy a very particular niche, so it was probably a way of detaching themselves from the competition for holes and crevices that happens with benthic, large-bodied gobiids and blenniids. At least where I live, G. flavescens are the only gobiids with adults swimming in the water column. The only species that often mingle with them are Gobius xanthocephalus and Pomatoschistus pictus right before they become adults and settle down on the substrate.

Dear Professor Amundsen,

I think this web site useful for you. please see it:

http://www.ilmb.gov.bc.ca/risc/o_docs/coastal/subtidal/subtidal-39.htm#topofpage

Good luck,

Hassan

Along the Atlantic Coast of North America Menidia menidia and some populations of Fundulus heteroclitus regularly lay their eggs on algal mats. Menidia menidia even lays it eggs on algal mats which are exposed to air at low tide. There are numerous publications about these two species and their breeding habits but I think that David Conover has done a lot on Menidia menidia and Ken Able has written a lot on Fundulus heteroclitus.

Some notothenioid fishes spawn in the intertidal, underneath rocks, in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic shores. Some of this species show parental care (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=221169, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8649.1978.tb04190.x/abstract). I have seen other notothenioids spawning inside the holdfast of the brown macroalgae Macrocystis pyrifera, but I don't think anybody had proved they also show parental care. I would bet they do.

Thanks to all responders for interesting info and help. Much appreciated! For future contributors: I am particularly interested in species attaching eggs to algae, and where males (and/or) females care for the eggs until hatching, for instance by defence and fanning. And references to scientific literature on such cases is very much appreciated. But I'm grateful for all sorts of relevant info.

This kind of strategies are very common in coastal lagoon inhabitants including gobids, blennids and labrids.

Are coastal lagoons physically or biologically controlled ecosystems? Revisiting r vs. K strategies in coastal lagoons and estuaries

Original Research Article

In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 28 May 2012

Angel Pérez-Ruzafa, Concepción Marcos, Isabel María Pérez-Ruzafa, María Pérez-Marcos

@Angel: I am certainly aware that paternal care is common in gobies and blennies (in particular). These typically breed on hard substrate - in mussels, burrows, crevices, etc. So far no puzzle. What I'm wondering about is evidence for breeding (depositing and caring for clutches) on kelp or other seaweeds. Would any of your coastal lagoon fishes do that?

Hi Trond

I know such behaviour from freshwater fish of the Loricariinae; in some species eggs are bred on leaves and then the leaf with the eggs is carried by the male. The problem with this kind of fish is that there is hardly any scientific literature on this topic, these are mainly observations by aquaristic people.

@Jost: Interesting! I might get to you with further questions about this at some stage yet not very soon. It's a frustrating fact that the vast majority of fishes are entirely or at least mostly unstudied in scientific terms.

In my knowledge, not in macrophytes. Only labrids prepare nests with algal debries, In fact, in coastal lagoons the strategy to attach eggs to algae probably is not adequate to protect the eggs as waves afect nearly the entire water column and they could be easily removed. As you say fishes uses crevices in rocky bottoms or small stones or empty shells of bivalves on sandy bottoms.

@Angel: thanks a lot for further info. Which species of labrids in your study area attach eggs to algal debris, and do the species in question care for these eggs after spawning?

Hej Trond, also the three-spines stickleback females lay eggs in (filamentous) algae, inside the nest of the males. The males take care the eggs (parental-care).

@Chrysoula: Thanks for that - I was actually aware of that; it also goes for other sticklebacks. I should probably clarify what I'm after: species spawning eggs on unmodified (live) algae. And whether these care for the eggs post spawning.

The species is Symphodus cinereus. Females spawn in the nest built by males and females with algal debries and the male guards the eggs.

Hi Trond!

Topsmelt, Atherinops affinis, also spawn on different aquatic vegetation from marine algae to seagrass leaves in estuarine conditions, their eggs have adhesive filaments and form clusters to stick at the nearshore vegetation

@Jorge: thanks a lot for info. Am I right that topsmelt has no parental care? It may seem more like a "herring-style" type of reproduction?

Trond!

At spawn, Topsmelt form clusters like "grapes" that attach at the plant leaves, but no parental care is present, however for parental care you can see the lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus), female lay sticky eggs in large masses at the nesting area and males guard the eggs until hatch (24-72 days), and are aggressive including to divers. Also, you can note the bay pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus) that males carry eggs in the belly as many as three females.

Japanese minnow (also known as topmouth gudgeon or stone moroko), Pseudorasbora parva, belonging to the Cyprinid family, is an invasive freshwater species in Europe. it is a multiple spawner that lays eggs on stones, gills, and macrophyte leaves also. After spawning, females leave the spawning grounds and males actively guard eggmass. At this time, they may even throw aggressively on fish sized in 2-3 times larger than the bravest guards. Unfortunately, I have not appropriate reference in English. Try to look through this one: SIZE-DEPENDENT MALE-MALE COMPETITION FOR A SPAWNING SUBSTRATE BETWEEN PSEUDORASBORA PARVA AND PSEUDORASBORA PUMILA. Konishi M., Takata K. Ichthyological Research. 2004. Т. 51. № 2. С. 184-187 (I have only abstract of this).

Not sure if your interest is on algae or on parental care but I am surprised to see nobody mentioned the 3-spined stickleback and the 15-spine stickleback that both use plant material to construct a next and display parental care that puts human males to shame. This is so well-documemnted that I won't attempt a reference but if you do need some advice please contact me.

@Ioanna: Thanks for your input. Sticklebacks have been mentioned by some other contributor (and briefly commented by me). Nest-builders are interesting in their own right. But those are not the ones my question as primarily intended at. What I'm first of all after are species depositing eggs on live algae (in "crevices" in the algae, on leaves, etc - "my" species use kelp) and then care for the eggs afterwards (be defense, fanning, or otherwise). A few entries above have identified such species, but I'd be most grateful to hear about more such species, if they exist. Anyone?!

I wrote several papers on clinid fishes and their reproduction, including algal nests and males guarding the nests. They are available here and on my website. https://www.utoledo.edu/nsm/lec/research/glgl/articles.html

Stepien, C.A., M. Glattke*, and K.M. Fink*. 1988. Regulation and significance of color patterns of the spotted kelpfish, Gibbonsia elegans Cooper. Copeia 1988(1):7-15.

Stepien, C.A. 1987. Color pattern and habitat differences between male, female, and juvenile giant kelpfish. Bulletin of Marine Science. 41(1): 45-58.

Stepien, C.A. 1986a. Life history and larval development of the giant kelpfish, Heterostichus rostratus Girard. Fishery Bulletin, United States 84(4):809-826.

Stepien, C.A. 1986b. Regulation of color morphic patterns in the giant kelpfish: Genetic versus environmental factors. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 100: 181-208.

@Carol: That's excellent info. Didn't know about these fishes at all. Embarrassing ignorance... Thanks a lot!

feel free to email me. I work on gobies more recently, the ones I work on adhere eggs to the substrate but not to algae, again males guard nests.

I have a question! Do your fish produce sounds? Sometimes sounds of fishes can be audible to a nearby human observer (sometimes a hydorphone is required to detect low amplitide sounds). Many gobies are vocal and it would be an important discovery to report if your species use vocal signals during reproductive behaviors, even if you report is just anecdotal since very little is known about the bioacoustic of most fishes. There is no vocal record for your genus or species.

Hello, Ingrid. Yes, fish are capable of producing sounds. Here in Ecuador there are at least two small species of grunts (small fish that are captured by beach seine) that make sound when captured, hence the name, but I understand they do it by means of their swim bladder, somehow they rasp it internally, maybe with the musculature around it. I am not near my private library now, but I could try to look up a scientific name for you if needed. Cheers!!!

Hello Enrique!

Thanks! I record and publish work on catfish sounds! i was hoping to encourage you to record the sounds of your fish species with a hydrophone and add to the sound signal production literature! I am trying to recruit you and the person studying Gobiusculus flavescens to record new fish sounds! Any new observations will likely be a first for the scientific community, and highly publishable data.

Thanks,

ingrid

Trond!

You can see the Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, the nesting site is rocky covered with red algae, and before of the spawn female erect her fins and male respond with sounds, and after that the male guard the eggs.

Also, flyingfish species spawn in kelp beds but with no parental care.

Cheers !

re: Fish sounds: There are sounds we qualify as "sounds" because they are in the frequency band correlated to human sound perception, but there is also acoustical energy that fish can generate with their bodies which can be below human ability to pitch-discriminate. In some instances this can be seen as a quaking motion - or seen (and heard) as a "pop" with a fast snap of fins or the body.

If you look at a school of fish through how each body generated particle motion in the water, and how they perceive this motion of adjacent fish along the lateral line, the entire school of fish becomes a "collective hearing body" This hearing modality facilitates their acting as a group to threats that none of them may be able to "see" with their eyes.

Other sound equipment that fish have are pharyngeal teeth, that they rasp with their tongue or a mechanism in their gullet, and yet another - used by the sciaenids (among others) are a muscle system that oscillates their swim bladder - which acts as a resonant chamber.

We have a library on the attached link that includes some fish sounds.

http://ocr.org/sounds/

I'm a bit too busy to follow all posts regularly, but would like to thank all contributors - much appreciated! I'll make sure to read everything properly and make use of all advice when I'm onto writing up the stuff that triggered my question. So keep on posting info on fishes that spawn their eggs on kelp or similar! And I'm happy to say that RG has given me much more valuable feedback on this issue than when I tested out som fish biology/science discussion sites some years ago. Tribute to RG!

Trond,

Best of luck, I hope my fish sound side track was not too distracting.

One response to Michael Stocker, how do clams hear, physiological speaking (I saw you website post), what kind of hair cells organs are they using?

Have you seen the older paper on surf clams that were hypothesized to "hear waves" approaching for swash-riding? by Olaf Ellers 1995 Biol Bull 189:120-7.

Thanks to all others as well for fish sound responses.

Ingrid

Mostly marine ornamental fishes they lay eggs on any hard substratum and care their eggs until hatching for example clone fishes lay eggs on hard substratum and care their eggs

The Lumpsucker, Cyclopterus lumpus, shows extensive parental care but mostly choses a hard substrate within weedbeds to deposit their eggs

So far as I know, both marine and freshwater sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae) often and perhaps even always construct algal nests and provide parental care.

Here's another species, too: Symphodus tinca, http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF00176171. That's interesting - it's a sometimes-care species.

I don't believe any of the Etheostoma darters both lay eggs on algae and provide care for those eggs. Some darters will happily lay on algae or submerged grass and are territorial (e.g. E. blennioides), and other darters provide varying degrees of parental care (e.g. the Catonotus, Boleosoma and some of the Nothonotus subgenera). Apparently, however, never the two shall meet. Citations: Kelly et al. 2012 (most recent paper hypothesizing repeated emergence of parental care in Etheostoma, available at http://www.yale.edu/eeb/near/72_Kelly_et_al2012.pdf), and originally something by Larry Page in the 1980s, which I can't put my finger on right now. Possibly: Page, L. M. 1985. Evolution of reproductive behaviors in percid fishes. pp. 275-295. In: 125 years of biological research 1858-1983: A symposium. Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 33(3):139:333. .

Hi Trond,

Did you include cartilaginous fishes in your quest? There is some information about it. You can look for egg capsules descriptions (sharks or skates) and the discussion almost always includes something about the egg laying in different substrata, specially in macroalgae. Enter here:

http://www.cienciasdelmar.cl/index.php/academicos/25-francisco-concha-toro

there you will find some pdfs about that.

Cheers!

Fishes that spawn on algae- a great many, do not know of any review. Of greatest interest those that do it systematically: e.g. algal-gardening damselfishes (and some others, including certain chromines), flagfishes, sticlebacks depending upon nesting material, Atlantic herring, some wrasses, species that spawn in Sargassum and other drift algae, etc. As a starting point, you might find "Modes of Reproduction in Fishes", Breder and Rosen I thnk around 1966.

Hello, you may be interested by the PhD thesis of Pierre Lejeune: he described the nesting activities of various Labridae Mediterranean species. Several harvest algae (Cystoseira spp., Dictyotales, others) to build their nests , lay eggs inside, and take care of the nest (the male provides the parental cares). Here is the PDF (in french sorry...) if you are interested.

Hi

Australian swellshark or draughtboard shark (Cephaloscyllium laticeps) is a species of catshark, family Scyliorhinidae, endemic to southern Australia lay its eggs on sea weeds In the wild, females lay flask-shaped egg cases and tangle them around seaweed for anchorage.

it could be propagated in aquarium too.

Sorry for late answer, following families under classis Chondrichthyes Huxley, 1880 are oviparous (and you may find eggcases on algae, not often but you can): Scyliorhinidae Gill, 1862, Heterodontidae Gray, 1851, Parascylliidae Gill, 1862, Brachaeluridae Applegate ?, Hemiscylliidae Gill, 1862, Stegostomatidae Gill, 1862, Ginglymostamatidae Gill, 1862, Rhiniodontidae J. P. Müller & Henle, 1839, Rajidae Bonaparte, 1831, and Chimaeridae Bonaparte, 1831. Good luck on your studies

dear Trond

i have publish an article about Cardinalfish and how to care and breeding in captive, this fish a marine finfish in endangered species. this fish around the indonesia and malawi very catched and transport to the around the world.

male this fish incubated eggs in himself mouth and kept them for growth.

you can download this article from this adress:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230875483_Captive_Breeding_of_Banggai_Cardinalfish_Pterapogon_kauderni_(Koumans_1933)_for_Exit_of_IUCN_Red_List

Article Captive Breeding of Banggai Cardinalfish, Pterapogon kaudern...

Don't have any species for you, but a question to ponder. With so many species that deposit eggs on macros (thinking of like herring roe slathering all available macros) what is the difference in benefit to the dispersers on macros w/ no parental input beyond egg production and these species that also use and nest build on macros with the addition of parental guarding? Is the a common benefit to the macros verses broadcast pelagically or even guarding in a sounder structure like Anoplarchus under rocks? Very interesting species!

In the marine domain the Pacific herring lays its eggs on kelp and the shortest fishery in the world, in terms of time, is for the eggs that have been laid on the eggs. This fishery I think is less than an hour. There are some good pictures on Google.

In freshwater a number of cyprinids lay their eggs attached to aquatic macrophytes such as Rutilus rutilus.

Abramis brama,Rutilus rutilus caspicus,Cyprinus carpio(sazan),Carassius,Clupea harengus pallasi( pacific herring).

mostly marine ornamental fishes needs hard substratum for lay eggs. See the reference http://www.nda.agric.za/doaDev/sideMenu/animalAndAquacultureProduction/docs/marine.pdf

Further to Les Kaufman's response below Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) are well known for spawning on algae and there is even a spawn-on-algae fishery supplying the Japanese market. As far as I know Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) do not exhibit this behaviour and principally spawn on gravel. However, you specifically mention parental care givers and neither herring species would exhibit this behaviour.

Herring spawn on kelp; Stacey, N. E. and Hourston, A. S. (1982). Spawning and feeding behavior of captive Pacific herring, Clupea harengus pallasi. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 39, 489-498.

No parental care, as far as I know, though.

Turns out the tubesnout (Aulorhynchus flavidus), a close relative of sticklebacks, lays eggs in seaweed, and the male defends the nest. I believe I came across some today, though my identification of them is purely Google-Fu.

Whole strand, about 65 cm. Each egg cluster was a few cm in diameter and moved freely on the stem. Wish I knew more about this species (or even if these are for sure tubesnout eggs), but I'm new to the Pacific Northwest of the US.

Hexagrammos otakii and

Trachidermus fasciatus