|Scientific Name:||Labroides bicolor|
|Species Authority:||Fowler & Bean, 1928|
Fowlerella bicolor (Fowler & Bean, 1928)
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Least Concern ver 3.1|
|Assessor/s:||Pollard, D., Yusuf, Y., Hilomen, V. & Pontillas, J.|
|Reviewer/s:||Craig, M.T. & Carpenter, K.E.|
This species is reasonably common throughout parts of its broad Indo-Pacific range. Although it is collected for the aquarium trade, it is not thought to be undergoing any widespread population decline. It is therefore listed as Least Concern. More research is needed on sustainable harvest levels and the impact of collection on this species.
|Range Description:||This species is widespread in the tropical and sub tropical waters (mainly between ~25° N and ~25° S) of the Indo-Pacific Region, from eastern Africa (Oman to South Africa) and the main Indian Ocean Islands in the west, to the Tuamotu Islands (French Polynesia) in the south Pacific Ocean in the east, and from southern Japan in the north west Pacific Ocean in the north, and via most of South East Asia to northern Western Australia, the southern Great Barrier Reef and Lord Howe Island in the south west Pacific Ocean in the south.|
Native:American Samoa (American Samoa); Australia; British Indian Ocean Territory; China; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Comoros; Cook Islands; Fiji; French Polynesia; Guam; India; Indonesia; Japan; Kenya; Kiribati; Madagascar; Malaysia; Maldives; Marshall Islands; Mauritius; Mayotte; Micronesia, Federated States of; Mozambique; Myanmar; Nauru; New Caledonia; Niue; Northern Mariana Islands; Oman; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Philippines; Réunion; Samoa; Seychelles; Singapore; Solomon Islands; Somalia; South Africa; Taiwan, Province of China; Tanzania, United Republic of; Thailand; Tokelau; Tonga; Tuvalu; United States Minor Outlying Islands; Vanuatu; Viet Nam; Wallis and Futuna; Yemen
|FAO Marine Fishing Areas:||
Indian Ocean – eastern; Indian Ocean – western; Pacific – eastern central; Pacific – northwest; Pacific – southwest; Pacific – western central
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
|Population:||This species is relatively common in parts of its range. It is rare in many sites in the Philippines (Werner and Allen 2000, V. Hilomen pers. comm. 2008) and in peninsular Malaysia (Y. Yusuf pers. comm. 2008).|
|Habitat and Ecology:||
This species inhabits coral rich areas from sub-tidal reef flats to deeper lagoons and seaward reefs, down to depths of at least 40 m (Lieske and Myers 1994, Letourner et al. 2004, Nguyen and Nguyen 2006).
Juveniles are generally solitary in deep ledges and are rarely seen cleaning. Adults tend to move over larger areas to clean, rather than waiting at fixed cleaning stations like some other cleaner wrasses (e.g. L. dimidiatus) (Kuiter 2002). It shows pronounced cleaning behaviour which only occurs during the day. Labroides bicolor is active in the daytime, and may possibly produce a protective mucous cocoon at night.
It is probably a monandric hermaphrodite, but might also undergo bi-directional sex-change (Robertson 1972, Kuwamura et al. 2002, Sadovy and Liu 2008, re L. dimidiatus). There appears to be no obvious adult colour dimorphism, the males and females having enerally the same colour pattern (though the male may exhibit a bluer head, Kuiter 2002). The juvenile colour pattern (yellow with a black stripe) is however different from that of the adults (Kuiter 2002).
It feeds on the crustacean ectoparasites of other fishes, probably including gnathiid isopods (Grutter 1997), and also on fish mucus (Masuda and Allen 1993).
|Major Threat(s):||There are no known major threats to this species. However, it used to be targeted in the marine aquarium fish trade but not commonly traded. Also, coral habitat degradation may have some localized impacts on this species.|
There are no species-specific conservation measures for this species. However, its distribution includes numerous Marine Protected Areas within its range.
Given the collection of this species for the aquarium trade, more research is needed on the local and global impact of its collection, as well as on the implementation of sustainable harvest and trade measures.
|Citation:||Pollard, D., Yusuf, Y., Hilomen, V. & Pontillas, J. 2010. Labroides bicolor. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 18 May 2013.|
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