Non‐linear thresholds characterize the relationship between reef fishes and mangrove habitat

Shideler, Geoffrey S.; Araújo, Rafael J.; Walker, Brian K.; Blondeau, Jeremiah; Serafy, Joseph E.

doi:10.1002/ecs2.1943

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Nonetheless, fine-scale BPI and two other fine-scale metrics of seafloor surface complexity-curvature and rugosity-were dropped entirely from both MaxEnt models. These results indicate that the distributions of sub-adult L. griseus and H. sciurus across the seascape are primarily driven by broad-scale habitat features and geographic location, a finding that is consistent with previous research on predatory reef fishes and which may be related to the high vagility and large home range sizes of these species (1-5 km) [96][97][98][99]. However, previous work in the Caribbean revealed that seafloor morphology and geographic location interact to drive the distributional patterns of herbivores, in addition to invertivores and piscivores, suggesting that this trend is likely common across coastal reef fish communities rather than being restricted to mobile predators [68].…”

Section: Variable Importancesupporting

confidence: 90%

Habitat Suitability Modeling to Inform Seascape Connectivity Conservation and Management

et al. 2021

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Coastal habitats have experienced significant degradation and fragmentation in recent decades under the strain of interacting ecosystem stressors. To maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, coastal managers and restoration practitioners face the urgent tasks of identifying priority areas for protection and developing innovative, scalable approaches to habitat restoration. Facilitating these efforts are models of seascape connectivity, which represent ecological linkages across heterogeneous marine environments by predicting species-specific dispersal between suitable habitat patches. However, defining the suitable habitat patches and migratory pathways required to construct ecologically realistic connectivity models remains challenging. Focusing on two reef-associated fish species of the Florida Keys, United States of America (USA), we compared two methods for constructing species- and life stage-specific spatial models of habitat suitability—penalized logistic regression and maximum entropy (MaxEnt). The goal of the model comparison was to identify the modeling algorithm that produced the most realistic and detailed products for use in subsequent connectivity assessments. Regardless of species, MaxEnt’s ability to distinguish between suitable and unsuitable locations exceeded that of the penalized regressions. Furthermore, MaxEnt’s habitat suitability predictions more closely aligned with the known ecology of the study species, revealing the environmental conditions and spatial patterns that best support each species across the seascape, with implications for predicting connectivity pathways and the distribution of key ecological processes. Our research demonstrates MaxEnt’s promise as a scalable, species-specific, and spatially explicit tool for informing models of seascape connectivity and guiding coastal conservation efforts.

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Section: Variable Importancesupporting

confidence: 90%

Habitat Suitability Modeling to Inform Seascape Connectivity Conservation and Management

et al. 2021

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“…Few studies have explicitly tested abrupt changes in densities and biomasses of fish nursery species with distance away from nursery areas (but see Nagelkerken et al , Shideler et al ). Furthermore, threshold distances have rarely been estimated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, fish nursery species in the Caribbean were found to rapidly decline at a distance of 4 km from nurseries and most nursery species were absent at locations 14 km away from nurseries (Nagelkerken et al ). Additionally, Shideler et al () found that species richness on Caribbean coral reefs declined with decreasing mangrove extent at scales < 20 km 2 . A larger proportion of Caribbean juvenile reef fishes utilise mangroves compared to seagrass as nursery habitat, while seagrass beds are utilised by a larger number of species as nursery habitat by Indo‐Pacific reef fishes, the major driver of this phenomena being the differences in tidal amplitudes (Igulu et al ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pittman et al () also highlighted the urgent need to incorporate information on the influence of seascape structure in marine resource management activities. Different types of seascapes provide different fish assemblages and hence focus on identifying and characterising seascape types may be more relevant than focusing on individual focal habitat types (Pittman et al , Nagelkerken et al , Shideler et al ). Considering the threshold values being different in the present study compared to a smaller seascape in the WIO and seascapes in the Caribbean, generalisations may be difficult.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thresholds in seascape connectivity: the spatial arrangement of nursery habitats structure fish communities on nearby reefs

et al. 2020

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Ecosystems are linked by the movement of organisms across habitat boundaries and the arrangement of habitat patches can affect species abundance and composition. In tropical seascapes many coral reef fishes settle in adjacent habitats and undergo ontogenetic habitat shifts to coral reefs as they grow. Few studies have attempted to measure at what distances from nursery habitats these fish migrations (connectivity) cease to exist and how the abundance, biomass and proportion of nursery species change on coral reefs along distance gradients away from nursery areas. The present study examines seascape spatial arrangement, including distances between habitats, and its consequences on connectivity within a tropical seascape in Mozambique using a seascape ecology approach. Fish and habitat surveys were undertaken in 2016/2017 and a thematic habitat map was created in ArcGIS, where cover and distances between habitat patches were calculated. Distance to mangroves and seagrasses were significant predictors for abundance and biomass of most nursery species. The proportions of nursery species were highest in the south of the archipelago, where mangroves were present and decreased with distance to nurseries (mangroves and seagrasses). Some nursery species were absent on reef sites farthest from nursery habitats, at 80 km from mangroves and at 12 km from seagrass habitats. The proportion of nursery/non-nursery snapper and parrotfish species, as well as abundance and biomass of seagrass nursery species abruptly declined at 8 km from seagrass habitats, indicating a threshold distance at which migrations may cease. Additionally, reefs isolated by large stretches of sand and deep water had very low abundances of several nursery species despite being within moderate distances from nursery habitats. This highlights the importance of considering the matrix (sand and deep water) as barriers for fish migration.

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“…Consequently, there is often an expectation that increasing habitat availability (e.g., abundance and connectivity of habitat suitable for consumer occupancy) will lead to greater population size or secondary production (Palmer, Ambrose, & Poff, 1997). While this assumption usually underpins habitat restoration efforts, it has been complicated by numerous studies documenting nonlinear (unimodal and threshold) effects of habitat availability on consumer performance (Allouche, Kalyuzhny, Moreno-Rueda, Pizarro, & Kadmon, 2012;Shideler, Araujo, Walker, Blondeau, & Serafy, 2017;Venier & Fahrig, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The energetic consequences of habitat structure for forest stream salmonids

Naman

Rosenfeld²,

Kiffney

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Increasing habitat availability (i.e. habitat suitable for occupancy) is often assumed to elevate the abundance or production of mobile consumers; however, this relationship is often nonlinear (threshold or unimodal). Identifying the mechanisms underlying these nonlinearities is essential for predicting the ecological impacts of habitat change, yet the functional forms and ultimate causation of consumer‐habitat relationships are often poorly understood. Nonlinear effects of habitat on animal abundance may manifest through physical constraints on foraging that restrict consumers from accessing their resources. Subsequent spatial incongruence between consumers and resources should lead to unimodal or saturating effects of habitat availability on consumer production if increasing the area of habitat suitable for consumer occupancy comes at the expense of habitats that generate resources. However, the shape of this relationship could be sensitive to cross‐ecosystem prey subsidies, which may be unrelated to recipient habitat structure and result in more linear habitat effects on consumer production. We investigated habitat‐production relationships for juveniles of stream‐rearing Pacific salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus spp.), which typically forage in low‐velocity pool habitats, while their prey (drifting benthic invertebrates) are produced upstream in high‐velocity riffles. However, juvenile salmonids also consume subsidies of terrestrial invertebrates that may be independent of pool‐riffle structure. We measured salmonid biomass production in 13 experimental enclosures each containing a downstream pool and upstream riffle, spanning a gradient of relative pool area (14%–80% pool). Increasing pool relative to riffle habitat area decreased prey abundance, leading to a nonlinear saturating effect on fish production. We then used bioenergetics model simulations to examine how the relationship between pool area and salmonid biomass is affected by varying levels of terrestrial subsidy. Simulations indicated that increasing terrestrial prey inputs linearized the effect of habitat availability on salmonid biomass, while decreasing terrestrial inputs exaggerated a “hump‐shaped” effect. Our results imply that nonlinear effects of habitat availability on consumer production can arise from trade‐offs between habitat suitable for consumer occupancy and habitat that generates prey. However, cross‐ecosystem prey subsidies can effectively decouple this trade‐off and modify consumer‐habitat relationships in recipient systems.

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Non‐linear thresholds characterize the relationship between reef fishes and mangrove habitat

Cited by 11 publications

References 55 publications

Habitat Suitability Modeling to Inform Seascape Connectivity Conservation and Management

Habitat Suitability Modeling to Inform Seascape Connectivity Conservation and Management

Thresholds in seascape connectivity: the spatial arrangement of nursery habitats structure fish communities on nearby reefs

The energetic consequences of habitat structure for forest stream salmonids

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