Multivariate regression tree for 10 species of fish from Moore Reef fish aggregation site.

The best tree structure from a multivariate regression tree analysis of the counts of 10 species predicted by month, surface seawater temperature, tidal direction, and moon phase (A). Histograms on the terminal nodes (“leaves”) show the abundance of each species and the number of underwater visual census samples (n). The bars on the histograms, from left to right represent 1. Trachinotus blochii, 2. Caranx sexfasciatus, 3. Lutjanus bohar, 4. Monotaxis grandoculis, 5. Macolor niger, 6. Lethrinus nebulosus, 7. Lethrinus olivaceus, 8. Plectorhinchus lineatus (indicated by *), 9. Acanthurus dussumieri (indicated by ϯ), 10. Naso annulatus. The node numbers are in boldface type for leaves and given in brackets for higher nodes. The DLI characterising the labelled nodes and leaves are an index of fidelity and specificity of a species to a node. (B) annual variation in surface seawater temperature, with the arrow marking the lowest recorded temperature during the 6-year study period.