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Why are Coral Reef Fishes so Colourful?

Ulricke Siebeck of the University of Queensland is the Doctoral Fellow for 2000 during the third year of her PhD project. She is investigating how coral reef fishes use their colours for camouflage and for signaling, both within and between species. Uli requires only one year's Fellowship funding to complete her work.

Many coral reef fishes are beautifully coloured and the colour patterns often contain an ultraviolet component that is invisible to the human eye. Uli's project addresses questions that arise from that observation. Are coral reef fish sensitive to UV radiation? If so, does the UV component play a role in recognition and communication? The human eye, like that of many other mammals, blocks UV light at the lens and cornea. However, many fish and other creatures allow this light through and process it much as humans process red, green and blue light. During the first two years of her PhD, Uli studied the lenses and corneas of more than 300 species of coral reef fishes to discover that about half of them transmit UV light and are therefore likely candidates as users of UV light for communication.

The Lizard Island Fellowship will enable Uli to take these results into the field where she will carry out extensive behavioural experiments. She will be working on species that have a UV component to their skin colouration and that were shown in her previous study to be likely candidates for possessing UV vision. She will use various behavioural methods in the lab and in the field to investigate the ability of the fish to see UV light as well as the role of UV colour patterns in their behaviour. A remote camera will be installed on the reef to record the interactions of fish behaving freely on the reef. Illumination conditions will be varied using filters so that the role of UV wavelengths can be determined by comparing behaviours with and without UV light. This research will provide an important foundation for understanding colour perception and colour communication in coral reef fishes.

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