Michalis Mihalitsis

Coral reef conservation is under pressure to act boldly in the face of climate-altered futures.

But how do we choose sustainable, responsible options?
Here, myself, @proftiffanym.bsky.social & David Bellwood introduce "MIMO". 👇

@cp-cellrepsustain.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Our paper on Nautilus sex determination made the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social !
With @reef-combo.bsky.social @anariesgo.bsky.social and Hector Torrado!
@leibnizlib.bsky.social
Check it out now!

New species alert! A Pascua goby from the Coral Sea. This genus now contains four species. Two from the Eastern Pacific and two from Australia, with more than 5,500km separating them. Lots of fun describing my second new species. #TeamFish #Fish
doi.org/10.3390/fish...

JOB OPPORTUNITIES with Guam Coral Reef Initiative (Five openings!)

www.guamcoralreefs.info/opportunities

#coralreefs #coralrestoration #jobs #careers #guam #restorationjobs #reefrestoration #coralreefecology #waterquality #marinebiology

Congrats Emily! Great work!

A bignose unicornfish, dark fish with yellowish fin edges, vertical bars on the body, and double scalpel blades at the base of the tail.

Naso! Great genus of surgeonfishes, sporting the vicious cutting scalpel blades at the base of their tail. Here is a better color photo of that bignose where you can see the tail blades.
🐟🦑🧪🌎

The lined surgeonfish, with beautiful blue and yellow lines on the body and orange pelvic fins

The regal angelfish, with stunning blue, orange and white bars and a bright yellow tail

Acanthuriform fishes! Research goals on Moorea are focused on morphology and evolution of defensive spines and backbones of surgeonfishes, angelfishes, and butterflyfishes. We have a scientific permit to collect specimens, and here are 2 beauties, Acanthurus lineatus and Pygoplites diacanthus. 🐟🦑🧪

Devonian ray-finned fishes were not particularly species rich, particularly compared to their lobe-finned cousins. This implies early actinopts might've also been anatomically monotonous. But a deep dive into their jaw anatomy w/ µCT reveals subtle but important structural diversity.

🐠🦈 Just out: In this paper we ask "How has reef trophic structure changed since humans started removing predatory fishes from Caribbean coral reefs?".

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Illustrations @cookedillustrations.com

Incompatibility between two major innovations shaped the diversification of fish feeding mechanisms Large teeth and highly protrusible jaws are two feeding innovations that have evolved in fishes. High-speed videography and comparative phylogenetic analyses indicate that they are incompatible with e...

Out today in @plosbiology.org! We show that two major advances in fish feeding - highly protrusible jaws and large teeth - are functionally and evolutionarily incompatible with each other. @mikemihalitsis.bsky.social and Peter Wainwright. Free to read: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

How are they biting? High-speed video reveals unexpected jaw movements in reef fish Some reef fish have the unexpected ability to move their jaws from side to side, biologists at the University of California, Davis have discovered. This ability—which is rare among vertebrate animals—...

phys.org/news/2025-05...
Article covering our new study on Zanclus and surgeonfish 🐟🐠 #teamfish

Thanks Bill! 🙂

Thanks Liz! 🙂

How are they biting? High-speed video reveals unexpected jaw movements in reef fish Some reef fish have the unexpected ability to move their jaws from side to side, biologists at the University of California, Davis have discovered.

High-speed video shows that some reef fish can move their jaws side to side, a rare trait among vertebrates that enables efficient feeding on algae growing on rocks and in crevices. doi.org/g9hg4h

Super excited that our new paper is out today in
@pnas.org. Title: Lateral jaw motion in fish expands the functional repertoire of vertebrates and underpins the success of a dominant herbivore lineage.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Deep dive: How I use robots to survey coral reefs Marine ecologist Gemma Galbraith builds remotely operated vehicles and uses them to assess how coral reefs are being affected by climate change.

Marine ecologist Gemma Galbraith builds remotely operated vehicles and uses them to assess how coral reefs are being affected by climate change

https://go.nature.com/4lbiAD8

10/10 We suggest that the evolution of many other traits, not typically considered key innovations, could affect species diversification in this way.

9/10 These results suggest that the combination of uniquely high evolutionary lability and the ecological versatility of complex teeth drove rapid diversification of cichlids in Lakes Malawi, Victoria, and Barombi Mbo. A new explanation for why these groups diversify so rapidly!

8/10 But having complex teeth is still a benefit. When lineages have complex teeth, they switch between different diets at much faster rates. This ecological versatility is elevated because complex teeth allow transitions through herbivory and omnivory.

7/10 When we fit SSE models, we find lability (greens) consistently increases speciation rate, despite high background rate variation. So, differences in lability explain speciation rate differences within rift lakes AND across habitats – separating out the “rift lake” effect.

6/10 Investigating this with more complex Bayesian models, we find that even within African cichlids, there are differences in lability. Lability is much higher in Lakes Malawi, Victoria, and Barombi Mbo – exceptional adaptive radiations.

5/10 But the distribution of high lability is uneven. This is concentrated within African cichlids (and NOT neotropical cichlids). The prevalence of lability of tooth complex in African cichlids is unique!

4/10 Comparing the effects of complexity and lability, we find it’s lability that increases speciation rates by 5x! So, rapidly gaining and losing tooth complexity has a much stronger effect than complex teeth alone – a new way to think about key innovations.

3/10 Complex teeth (e.g. molars) are a key innovation for mammals and squamates. We find in fishes, they evolve many (>86) times but remain rare (~11% of species), evolving slowly across most of the tree. But in a few groups, the rate is significantly increased – evolutionary lability.

2/10 Key innovations are thought to rarely evolve with massive effects on diversification. Species differ in capacity to evolve new traits; differences in how innovations evolve has been overlooked. This variation could have strong effects if the trait is linked to ecological divergence.

Evolutionary lability of a key innovation spurs rapid diversification - Nature A study shows that the rapid diversification of cichlids in African lakes is driven by their ability to evolve between having simple or complex teeth.

1/10 *** New paper out *** (on behalf of Nick Peoples who is not on Bluesky). I am beyond excited to present our new paper out now in @Nature! Here, we show that rapid gain and loss of tooth complexity accelerates diversification in fishes! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evolutionary lability of a key innovation spurs rapid diversification - Nature A study shows that the rapid diversification of cichlids in African lakes is driven by their ability to evolve between having simple or complex teeth.

Congratulations to PhD student Nick Peoples in the Wainwright Lab on his first paper, looking at a key innovation across ray-finned fishes and its evolutionary dynamics. 🐟
#teamfish #evolution

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

uog.peopleadmin.com/postings/4332
Join us at the University of Guam!
Assistant Professor position in Marine Microbiology 🐟

Downscaling global reference points to assess the sustainability of local fisheries Multispecies coral reef fisheries are typically managed by local communities who often lack research and monitoring capacity, which prevents estimation of well-defined sustainable reference points to...

Hot new #OpenAccess paper by ECR superstar @jzamborainmason.bsky.social on Downscaling global reference points to assess the sustainability of local fisheries. We downscaled a global model to examine whether Ahus Island's fishery is sustainable.
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Downscaling global reference points to assess the sustainability of local fisheries Multispecies coral reef fisheries are typically managed by local communities who often lack research and monitoring capacity, which prevents estimation of well-defined sustainable reference points to....

Just out in early view @Conbiology we show how to assess the sustainability of data poor reef fisheries leveraging information from global models!
@joshuacinner.bsky.social @mikemihalitsis.bsky.social

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...