Determining whether many functionally complementary species or only a subset of key species are necessary to maintain ecosystem functioning and services is a critical question in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. Identifying such key species remains challenging, especially in the tropics where many species co-occur and can potentially support the same or different processes. Here, we developed a new community-wide scan (CWS) approach, analogous to the genome-wide scan, to identify fish species that significantly contribute, beyond the socio-environmental and species richness effects, to the biomass and coral cover on Indo-Pacific reefs. We found that only a limited set of species (51 out of approx. 400, approx. 13%), belonging to various functional groups and evolutionary lineages, are strongly and positively associated with fish biomass and live coral cover. Many of these species have not previously been identified as functionally important, and thus may be involved in unknown, yet important, biological mechanisms that help sustain healthy and productive coral reefs. CWS has the potential to reveal species that are key to ecosystem functioning and services and to guide management strategies as well as new experiments to decipher underlying causal ecological processes.
Maire E., Villéger S., Graham N.A.J., Hoey A.S., Cinner J., Ferse S.C.A., Aliaume C., Booth D.J., Feary D.A., Kulbicki M., Sandin S.A., Vigliola L. and Mouillot D. (2018) Community-wide scan identifies fish species associated with coral reef services across the Indo-Pacific. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 285(1883): 1167. 10.1098/rspb.2018.1167
@article{Maire2018,
Title = {Community-wide scan identifies fish species associated with coral reef services across the Indo-Pacific},
Author = {Maire, Eva and Villéger, Sébastien and Graham, Nicholas A. J. and Hoey, Andrew S. and Cinner, Joshua and Ferse, Sebastian C.A. and Aliaume, Catherine and Booth, David J. and Feary, David A. and Kulbicki, Michel and Sandin, Stuart A. and Vigliola, Laurent and Mouillot, David},
Editor = {},
Journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences},
Year = {2018},
Pages = {1167},
Volume = {285},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2018.1167},
Abstract = {Determining whether many functionally complementary species or only a subset of key species are necessary to maintain ecosystem functioning and services is a critical question in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. Identifying such key species remains challenging, especially in the tropics where many species co-occur and can potentially support the same or different processes. Here, we developed a new community-wide scan (CWS) approach, analogous to the genome-wide scan, to identify fish species that significantly contribute, beyond the socio-environmental and species richness effects, to the biomass and coral cover on Indo-Pacific reefs. We found that only a limited set of species (51 out of approx. 400, approx. 13%), belonging to various functional groups and evolutionary lineages, are strongly and positively associated with fish biomass and live coral cover. Many of these species have not previously been identified as functionally important, and thus may be involved in unknown, yet important, biological mechanisms that help sustain healthy and productive coral reefs. CWS has the potential to reveal species that are key to ecosystem functioning and services and to guide management strategies as well as new experiments to decipher underlying causal ecological processes.},
}
TY - JOUR
AU - Maire, Eva
AU - Villéger, Sébastien
AU - Graham, Nicholas A. J.
AU - Hoey, Andrew S.
AU - Cinner, Joshua
AU - Ferse, Sebastian C.A.
AU - Aliaume, Catherine
AU - Booth, David J.
AU - Feary, David A.
AU - Kulbicki, Michel
AU - Sandin, Stuart A.
AU - Vigliola, Laurent
AU - Mouillot, David
TI - Community-wide scan identifies fish species associated with coral reef services across the Indo-Pacific
T2 - Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
PY - 2018
SP - 1167
VL - 285
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2018.1167
AB - Determining whether many functionally complementary species or only a subset of key species are necessary to maintain ecosystem functioning and services is a critical question in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. Identifying such key species remains challenging, especially in the tropics where many species co-occur and can potentially support the same or different processes. Here, we developed a new community-wide scan (CWS) approach, analogous to the genome-wide scan, to identify fish species that significantly contribute, beyond the socio-environmental and species richness effects, to the biomass and coral cover on Indo-Pacific reefs. We found that only a limited set of species (51 out of approx. 400, approx. 13%), belonging to various functional groups and evolutionary lineages, are strongly and positively associated with fish biomass and live coral cover. Many of these species have not previously been identified as functionally important, and thus may be involved in unknown, yet important, biological mechanisms that help sustain healthy and productive coral reefs. CWS has the potential to reveal species that are key to ecosystem functioning and services and to guide management strategies as well as new experiments to decipher underlying causal ecological processes.
ER -
Details
Date25.07.2018
JournalProceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences