LARSON and DeMARTINI: DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES IN KELP FOREST 



that the upper kelp canopy serves as a nursery for 

 young-of-the-year kelp bass, and these cryptic fish 

 were probably much more abundant there than 

 shown by our counts. We examined vertical segrega- 



tion of size classes only for kelp bass. This is because 

 our 1979 data were too few to evaluate vertical 

 segregation by size that has since been noted for two 

 other species (senorita and blacksmith) in several 



Table 5.— Percent of transects on which species were observed during fall 1979, in two portions of a kelp forest near San 

 Onofre, Calif. (SOK-U and SOK-D) and in a nearby kelpless cobble area (Cobble). Species' ranks are shown in 

 parentheses. Number of transects is noted in the column heading. 



TABLE 6. — Mean numerical and biomass densities (per 1,000 m 3 ) of fishes observed in n daily samples per depth stratum at the SOK-U area in 

 the San Onofre kelp bed during fall 1979. Values are the grand means (± 1 standard error) of the daily means (adjusted for transect volume) over 

 transects taken each sampling day. 



45 



