Relationships between structural complexity, coral traits, and reef fish assemblages

Abstract

With the ongoing loss of coral cover and the associated flattening of reef architecture, understanding the links between coral habitat and reef fishes is of critical importance. Here, we investigate whether considering coral traits and functional diversity provides new insights into the relationship between structural complexity and reef fish communities, and whether coral traits and community composition can predict structural complexity. Across 157 sites in Seychelles, Maldives, the Chagos archipelago and Australia's Great Barrier Reef, we find that structural complexity and reef zone are the strongest and most consistent predictors of reef fish abundance, biomass, species richness, and trophic structure. However, coral traits, diversity and life histories provided additional predictive power for models of reef fish assemblages, and were key drivers of structural complexity. Our findings highlight that reef complexity relies on living corals-with different traits and life histories-continuing to build carbonate skeletons, and that these nuanced relationships between coral assemblages and habitat complexity can affect the structure of reef fish assemblages. Seascape-level estimates of structural complexity are rapid and cost-effective with important implications for the structure and function of fish assemblages, and should be incorporated into monitoring programs.

Human‐induced gradients of reef fish declines in the Hawaiian Archipelago viewed through the lens of traditional management boundaries

“…At finer scales, structural complexity and reef zone have been shown to be important drivers of fish reef assemblage structure in Hawai'i and throughout the Indo-Pacific (Darling et al, 2017;Friedlander & Parrish, 1998;Graham & Nash, 2013), and these need to be considered when assessing and managing such resources at these scales. In addition to human population density, SST and chlorophyll-α also had negative influences on resource fish biomass, while coral cover was positively related with this variable.…”

“…habitat quality, reef zone, productivity, sea surface temperature), as well as the magnitude of human extraction (Darling et al, 2017;Pinca et al, 2012;Williams et al, 2015). habitat quality, reef zone, productivity, sea surface temperature), as well as the magnitude of human extraction (Darling et al, 2017;Pinca et al, 2012;Williams et al, 2015).…”

Importance, Destruction and Recovery of Coral Reefs

“…Across 157 sites in Seychelles, Maldives, the Chagos Archipelago, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef, They [8] find that structural complexity and reef zone are the strongest and most consistent predictors of reef fish abundance, biomass, species richness, and trophic structure. They estimate that there may be another 1 to 8 million undiscovered species of organisms living in and around reefs [9].…”

“…Seascape-level estimates of structural complexity are rapid and cost effective with important implications for the structure and function of fish assemblages, and should be incorporated into monitoring programs. [8] [16] As said before, recovery in the Australia's Great Barrier Reef, of average coral cover was relatively slow and there were further declines in fish species richness and abundance. But in a different area, the Caribbean coral reefs, after an attempt to quantify the contribution of hurricanes to Caribbean coral, [26] Importance, destruction and recovery of coral reefs DOI: 10.9790/3008-1202025963 www.iosrjournals.org 62 | Page they didn't find evidence of recovery to a pre-storm state for at least eight years after impact.…”

“…In the next part there is more about the destruction of coral reefs, just the question now is, what are we actually losing? The findings in a research [8] highlight that reef complexity relies on living corals-with different traits and life histories-continuing to build carbonate skeletons, and that these nuanced relationships between coral assemblages and habitat complexity can affect the structure of reef fish assemblages.…”