Abstract
South African marine ichthyofauna has remarkable diversity across a range of biogeographic zones from cold-temperate to subtropical. Two families stand out here, both with high diversity and high rates of endemism to the region, namely Sparidae and Clinidae. The Sparidae are of greater interest because of their commercial importance, and conversely, their conservation status. Several are listed as threatened by the IUCN. The Sparidae is also the family with the greatest plasticity in life history characteristics of any vertebrate family, as they include gonochorism, rudimentary hermaphrodites, and both kinds of sequential hermaphrodites. Life history characteristics are known determinants of the resilience of fish species to fishing, and more generally of their response, either positive or negative, to any form of disturbance. Life history characteristics of most of the species of Sparidae, in South Africa and worldwide, have been studied, particularly those of commercial and conservation importance. Omissions include those that are small, with little commercial importance. This is an oversight, as there is much to be learned about life history strategies by studying the full spectrum of variation in the family, and particularly those variants which produce numerically, and therefore ecologically, significant population sizes. In this thesis, I study the life history and parasite community of one of South Africa’s most abundant seabreams in separate chapters. In the last chapter I take a fresh perspective on life history variation among fishes, by comparing four sympatric seabreams to describe the several dimensions along which life history trade-offs can occur …