Simple ecological trade-offs give rise to emergent cross-ecosystem distributions of a coral reef fish

Autor: Monique G. G. Grol, Ivan Nagelkerken, Craig A. Layman, Andrew L. Rypel
Rok vydání: 2010
Předmět:
Nursery
0106 biological sciences
Animal Ecology and Physiology
Coral reef fish
Population Dynamics
Coastal fish
Ontogenetic niche shifts
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Behavioral ecology - Original Paper
Essential fish habitat
Animals
14. Life underwater
Aquaculture of coral
Predator–prey dynamics
GeneralLiterature_REFERENCE(e.g.
dictionaries
encyclopedias
glossaries)
Ecosystem
Ecology
Evolution
Behavior and Systematics
Nursery habitat
Connectivity
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
Behavior
Animal
biology
Coral Reefs
Ecology
Reproduction
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
fungi
Age Factors
Fishes
technology
industry
and agriculture
Life history traits
Juvenile fish
Coral reef
biochemical phenomena
metabolism
and nutrition
biology.organism_classification
Fishery
Haemulon flavolineatum
population characteristics
geographic locations
Zdroj: Oecologia, 165, 79-88
Oecologia, 165, 1, pp. 79-88
Oecologia
ISSN: 1432-1939
0029-8549
Popis: Ecosystems are intricately linked by the flow of organisms across their boundaries, and such connectivity can be essential to the structure and function of the linked ecosystems. For example, many coral reef fish populations are maintained by the movement of individuals from spatially segregated juvenile habitats (i.e., nurseries, such as mangroves and seagrass beds) to areas preferred by adults. It is presumed that nursery habitats provide for faster growth (higher food availability) and/or low predation risk for juveniles, but empirical data supporting this hypothesis is surprisingly lacking for coral reef fishes. Here, we investigate potential mechanisms (growth, predation risk, and reproductive investment) that give rise to the distribution patterns of a common Caribbean reef fish species, Haemulon flavolineatum (French grunt). Adults were primarily found on coral reefs, whereas juvenile fish only occurred in non-reef habitats. Contrary to our initial expectations, analysis of length-at-age revealed that growth rates were highest on coral reefs and not within nursery habitats. Survival rates in tethering trials were 0% for small juvenile fish transplanted to coral reefs and 24-47% in the nurseries. As fish grew, survival rates on coral reefs approached those in non-reef habitats (56 vs. 77-100%, respectively). As such, predation seems to be the primary factor driving across-ecosystem distributions of this fish, and thus the primary reason why mangrove and seagrass habitats function as nursery habitat. Identifying the mechanisms that lead to such distributions is critical to develop appropriate conservation initiatives, identify essential fish habitat, and predict impacts associated with environmental change.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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