Coral reefs may produce as much as 10% of the annual world fish catch. Yet, very little investigation has been done on the biology of coral reef fishes, so that we know little about their growth rates and mortalities, vital parameters in the understanding of their population dynamics and, hence, of their exploitability. The Fourth International Coral Reef Symposium, held in Manila 18-22 May 1981, gave an opportunity to address this problem and, in fact, a significant number of the papers presented did deal with applied fisheries issues.