Commercially Important Coral Reef Fishes of Tawi-Tawi

From Muallil et al., 2020: "Species inventory was conducted by opportunistically visiting the public market (“tabuh”) and fish warehouses (“bodega”) in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi at least twice a month from October 2015 to December 2018 (Fig. 2). The public market is the only wet market in Bongao where common foodfish are sold. High value and live reef fishes are usually brought by fishers to fish warehouses or “bodega”. According to the warehouse owners/operators, fishes sold here come from nearby municipalities such as Simunul, Panglima Sugala, Sapa-Sapa, Tandubas, South Ubian and Languyan. Fishes from the farther Sibutu and Sitangkai municipalities are also reportedly brought to fish warehouses in Bongao. Fish at the warehouses are mostly shipped out of Tawi-Tawi by boat to Zamboanga City. Local buyers can also buy fish from the fish warehouses but at higher price than those at the public market. There are also anecdotal accounts of traders from Malaysia coming to TawiTawi or traders from Tawi-Tawi going to Malaysia to buy or sell fish, respectively. Bongao, Tawi-Tawi is less than five hours away by boat from the coast of Sabah, Malaysia. According to fish vendors and traders, all their fish were caught exclusively from the waters of TawiTawi as it would be impractical for fishers/traders from Malaysia and other provinces to bring their fish to Tawi-Tawi considering the distance and the relatively low market value of fish in Tawi-Tawi. All the surveys were conducted during daytime, mostly during the peak hours of the market from 7:00 to 11:00 in the morning. Sometimes, we proceeded to the warehouses to continue the surveys. However, fishes in the warehouses were not openly accessible for researchers as the fish are kept inside storage boxes. We could only do the surveys while the fish were still outside the boxes usually when fishers from nearby islands delivered their fish or when the traders sorted the fish in preparation for shipping. With the permission of the vendors, each fish was put on its lateral side and photographed from the top just high enough to capture the entire length of the specimen. Species identification was done using the following references, namely, Allen et al. (2003), Allen and Erdmann (2012), Gonzales (2013) and White et al. (2013). The names of the species were validated from Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes online (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp) and their conservation status was determined from the IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species website (https://www.iucnredlist.org/)."本数据集源自Muallil等（2020）的研究：2015年10月至2018年12月期间，研究团队每月至少两次顺路探访塔维塔awi省（Tawi-Tawi）邦高市（Bongao）的公共集市("tabuh")与鱼类仓库("bodega")开展物种调查（图2）。 该公共集市为邦高市唯一售卖常见食用鱼类的湿货市场。高价值活珊瑚礁鱼类通常由渔民运送至鱼类仓库（即"bodega"）。据仓库经营者透露，此处售卖的鱼类来自周边市镇，包括西穆努尔（Simunul）、潘利马苏加拉（Panglima Sugala）、萨帕萨帕（Sapa-Sapa）、坦杜巴斯（Tandubas）、南乌比安（South Ubian）以及兰古扬（Languyan）。另有报道称，来自更远的西布图（Sibutu）与Sitangkai市镇的鱼类也会被运送至邦高市的鱼类仓库。仓库内的鱼类大多通过船舶运出塔维塔awi省，运往三宝颜市（Zamboanga City）。本地买家也可从鱼类仓库购鱼，但售价高于公共集市。另有轶事记录显示，马来西亚商贩会前往塔维塔awi省收购鱼类，而塔维塔awi省的商贩也会赴马来西亚售卖鱼类。从马来西亚沙巴州（Sabah）海岸乘船前往塔维塔awi省邦高市，耗时不足5小时。据鱼贩与商贩透露，所有售卖的鱼类均仅产自塔维塔awi省海域——考虑到运输距离与塔维塔awi省相对偏低的鱼类市场价值，来自马来西亚及其他省份的渔民/商贩将鱼类运至此处并不划算。 所有调查均在日间开展，主要集中在集市早高峰时段（7:00至11:00）。有时研究团队会前往鱼类仓库继续调查。但受限于鱼类均存放于储物箱内，研究人员无法直接接触仓库内的鱼类。仅当渔民从周边岛屿运送鱼类抵达，或是商贩分拣待运鱼类时，鱼类暂存于箱外，此时研究人员方可开展调查。经商贩许可后，研究人员会将每条鱼侧放，从正上方以恰好能覆盖标本全长的高度拍摄照片。 物种鉴定参考以下文献：Allen等（2003）、Allen与Erdmann（2012）、Gonzales（2013）以及White等（2013）。物种学名通过埃施迈耶鱼类在线目录（Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes，http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp）进行校验，物种保护等级则由国际自然保护联盟濒危物种红色名录（IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species，https://www.iucnredlist.org/）确定。