Résumé :
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Metamorphosis and the transition from larvae or embryos to juveniles in fishes are important to answer, for example, question about:: -life-history styles and their modifications in evolutionary perspective and within current environmental demands; -the development and application of fisheries recruitment models, -the use of ontogenetic scales for interspecific comparisons, -the identification of ontogenetic shifts in resource use, -and to reveal evolutionary interrelationships of species or genera. This volume is dedicated to recent studies and reviews of existing knowledge on this unsufficiently-addressed area of ichthyology. This volume emphasizes an integrated approach to the study of fish ontogeny, which is a process during which one event is related to another and everything is related to everything else, encompassing physiology,morphology, behaviour and niche. Within this comprehensive perspective, the papers in this volume are grouped along four major themes: -reflections on early ontogeny and metamorphosis, -organism-environment relationships, ontogeny of predator-prey interactions, -and behaviour and ontogeny. Among other issues, the papers consider topics such as wether one can identify when fish metamorphosis ends, whether the larva period begins with hatching or with the onset of exogenous feeding, whether fish ontogeny is "saltory" or "gradual", and whether in some fishes with direct development larvae are eliminated. The keynote paper of this volume reviews the main topics within contemporary paradigms and the concluding paper summarizes that the onset of the juvenile period can be identified in some species, but precision remains problematic, emphasizing the need for further research in this dynamic area of fish biology.
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