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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

An Integrated Micro-Device System for Coral Growth and Monitoring
Published on: July 21, 2023
Recent invasion of the tropical Atlantic by an Indo-Pacific coral reef fish
Luiz A Rocha1, D Ross Robertson, Claudia R Rocha
1Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Unit 0948, APO, AA 34002-0948, USA. rochal@naos.si.edu
Abstract:
The last tropical connection between Atlantic and Indian-Pacific habitats closed c. 2 million years ago (Ma), with the onset of cold-water upwelling off southwestern Africa. Yet comparative morphology indicates more recent connections in several taxa, including reef-associated gobies (genus Gnatholepis). Coalescence and phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA cytochrome b sequences demonstrate that Gnatholepis invaded the Atlantic during an interglacial period approximately 145,000 years ago (d = 0.0054), colonizing from the Indian Ocean to the western Atlantic, and subsequently to the central ( approximately 100,000 years ago) and eastern Atlantic ( approximately 30,000 years ago). Census data show a contemporary range expansion in the northeastern Atlantic linked to global warming.
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