188 
Fishery Bulletin 99(1) 
just prior to Brown et al. 7 Because decreases in abundance 
and size of populations are widely recognized as evidence 
of fishing pressure (Russ, 1991; Jennings and Lock, 1996), 
fishing pressure between the two zones in this study did 
not appear to vary. 
Eight years of effective protection from substantial fish- 
ing pressure should have produced detectable differences 
in the structure of populations of P. leopardus on these 
closed and open reefs. Generally, studies on the GBR have 
shown an increase in average size of P. leopardus popula- 
Table 7 
Abundance (in number and percentage) of prey belonging to families in 
Families of fishes living in the midwaters are underlined. 
the diet of P. leopardus caught by the two fishing methods. 
Prey families 
Line 
Spear 
Total 
Number 
% 
Number 
% 
Pomacentridae 
2 
9.5 
45 
27.3 
47 
Labridae 
1 
4.8 
36 
21.8 
37 
Clupeidae 
n 
52.5 
20 
12,1 
31 
Caesionidae 
1 
L8 
n 
a6 
12 
Synodontidae 
2 
9.5 
8 
4.8 
10 
Scaridae 
8 
4.8 
8 
Blenniidae 
7 
4.2 
7 
Acanthuridae 
1 
4.8 
5 
3.0 
6 
Apogonidae 
6 
3.6 
6 
Serranidae 
1 
4.8 
4 
2.4 
5 
Engraulidae 
3 
L8 
3 
Fistulariidae 
2 
9A 
1 
06 
3 
Gobiidae 
2 
1.2 
2 
Balistidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Creedidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Lutjanidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Monacanthidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Nemipteridae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Platycephalidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Plesiopidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Scorpaenidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Siganidae 
1 
0.6 
1 
Total 
21 
165 
186 
No. of P. leopardus with prey 
38 
342 
380 
Table 8 
Results of Fisher exact tests for the number of prey per family. Information in brackets is Fisher’s exact test statistic, degrees of 
freedom (df), and exact probability levels ( P ). Significance of tests is denoted by ** for PcO.Ol and * for P<0.05, and ns is nonsig- 
nificant. Comparisons between fishing zones and fishing methods are tested at P =0.01 level of significance (see “Materials and 
methods” section for explanation). 
Dietary differences among P. leopardus 
Fishing zones 
Locations 
Fishing methods 
Open vs. closed (reefs pooled) 
ns 
(28.3, df= 21, P=0.046) 
North vs. south (reefs pooled) 
* 
(29.0, df=21, P=0.040) 
Speared vs. line caught (reefs pooled) 
ns 
(34.2, df=21, P=0.034) 
Open reefs Closed reefs 
North reefs South reefs 
Among 4 reefs 
* ns 
(22.5, df=16, P=0.056) (18.5, df=15, P=0.908) 
ns ns 
(23.2, df=20, P=0.135) (19.8, df=ll, P=0.155) 
** 
(75.2, df=63, P=0.007) 
