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Cross-scale habitat structure drives fish body size distributions on coral reefs

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 18:08 authored by Kirsty NashKirsty Nash, Graham, NAJ, Wilson, SK, Bellwood, DR
Despite a large number of studies focusing on the complexity of coral reef habitats and the characteristics of associated fish assemblages, the relationship between reef structure and fish assemblages remains unclear. The textural discontinuity hypothesis, which proposes that multi-modal body size distributions of organisms are driven by discontinuous habitat structure, provides a theoretical basis that may explain the influence of habitat availability on associated organisms. In this study we use fractal techniques to characterize patterns of cross-scale habitat complexity, and examine how this relates to body-depth abundance distributions of associated fish assemblages over corresponding spatial scales. Our study demonstrates that: (1) Reefs formed from different underlying substrata exhibit distinct patterns of cross-scale habitat complexity; (2) The availability of potential refuges at different scales correlates with patterns in fish body depth distributions, but habitat structure is more strongly related to the relative abundance of fish in the body depth modes, rather than to the number of modes; (3) As reefs change from coral- to algal-dominated states, the complexity of the underlying reef substratum may change, presenting a more homogenous environment to associated assemblages; (4) Individual fish body depth distributions may be multi-modal, however, these distributions are not static characteristics of the fish assemblage and may change to uni-modal forms in response to changing habitat condition. In light of predicted anthropogenic changes, there is a clear need to improve our understanding of the scale of ecological relationships to anticipate future changes and vulnerabilities.

History

Publication title

Ecosystems

Volume

16

Pagination

478-490

ISSN

1432-9840

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Place of publication

175 Fifth Ave, New York, USA, Ny, 10010

Rights statement

Copyright 2012 Springer Science+Business

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Marine biodiversity

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