CLEANING SYMBIOSIS AMONG CALIFORNIA INSHORE FISHES

Cleaning symbiosis among shore fishes was studied during 1968 and 1969 in southern California, with work centered a t La Jolla. Three species are habitual cleaners: the seAoriF, Ozyjulis californica; the sharpnose seaperch, Phanerodon atripes; and the kelp perch, Brachyistius frenatus. Because of specific differences in habitat, there is little overlap in the cleaning areas of these three species. Except for juvenile sharpnose seaperch, cleaning is of secondary significance to these species, even though it may be of major significance to certain individuals. The tendency to clean varies between individuals. Principal prey of most members of these species are free-living organisms picked from a substrate and from midwater-a mode of feeding that favors adaptations suited to cleaning. Because i t is exceedingly abundant in a variety of habitats, the seiiorita is the predominant inshore cleaning fish in California. Certain aspects of its cleaning relate to the fact that only a few of the many seiioritas present at a given time will clean, and that this activity is not centered around well-defined cleaning stations, as has been reported for certain cleaning fishes elsewhere. Probably because cleaners are difficult to recognize among the many seiioritas that do not clean, other fishes.generally do not attempt to initiate-cleaning; rather, the activity is consistently initiated by the cleaner itself. An infested fish approached by a cleaner generally drifts into an unusual attitude that advertises the temporary existence of the transient cleaning station to other fish in need of service, and these converge on the cleaner. Although seiioritas, as a group, clean a number of different fishes, a given individual tends to initiate cleaning with members of just one species. The fishes cleaned most often are those which are most abundant and, at the same time, are most heavily infested with external parasites. The most numerous ectoparasites are caligid copepods, the most abundant and widespread of which is Caligwr hobsoni. These particular parasites, along with gnathiid isopod larvae, are the major prey of the cleaning fishes. Cleaning is essentially limited to the external body surface; ectoparasites of the oral and branchial cavities are not ordinarily taken. Cleaning effectively reduces the number of parasites on fishes that are cleaned, and is an important activity for the organisms iwolved. However, there is no basis for the contention that many good fishing grounds in southern California exist because fishes have congregated in these locations for cleaning. It has been suggested that many of the better inshore fishing spots are, in fact, cleaning stations (Limbaugh, 1961; Feder, 1966). The contention is that fishes congregate a t these locations so that ectoparasites and other deleterious material can be removed from their bodies by resident cleaning organisms. Critics of this hypothesis might well suggest instead that cleaners simply are especially active where fishes are most abundant, or that the cleaners as well as those they clean occur a t these locations for Contribution of Scri ps Institution of Oceanogra hy. ' National Marine F? sheries Service, Tiburon g o r t Fisheries Marine Laboratory, Tiburon, Calif. , and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Universit of California, San Diego, Calif. Mailin address: Kational Marine Fisheries Service Fishery-gceanography Center, P.O. Box 271, La Jolla, calif. 92037. Manuscript accepted March 1971. FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 69. NO. 3, nil. reasons that have nothing to do with cleaning. Regardless of which view is correct in a given situation, one having witnessed fishes crowded around a cleaner, vigorously soliciting its services, can only conclude that this activity is indeed important to the organisms involved. Cleaning symbiosis has been widely described in the literature (Longley and Hildebrand, 1941; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1955 ; Limbaugh, 1955, 1961; Randall, 1958, 1962; and others) and was reviewed by Feder (1966). Youngbluth (1968) studied activity of the Hawaiian cleaning labrid Labroides phthirophagus in some detail, and Losey (1971) analyzed the communicative signals between this same species and the fishes that it cleans. But most other reports on cleaning have been simple treatments based largely on