SPECIES DISTRIBUTION
; CLIMATE-CHANGE
; ECOLOGY
; MODELS
; SCLERACTINIA
; POPULATION
; DIVERSITY
; GRADIENTS
WOS学科分类:
Ecology
WOS研究方向:
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
英文摘要:
Changes in abundance across a natural environmental gradient provide important insights into a species' realized ecological niche. In reef-building corals, a species' niche is often defined using its depth range. However, most reef-building coral species occur over a broad depth range, a fact that is incompatible with the strong zonation found in coral assemblages across depth. We resolve this paradox by modeling the abundance distributions of 110 coral species across a 45 m depth gradient to show that most are in fact depth specialists and reveal that depth range alone is incapable of capturing a species' depth use. We then highlight the significance of our results by demonstrating how depth range greatly overestimates the potential number of species with a refuge at depth from global warming. Our findings illustrate both the limitations of the simple metric of depth range and the ecological insights that can be gained by moving beyond it.
1.James Cook Univ, Australian Res Council Ctr Excellent Coral Reef S, Townsville, Qld 4811, Australia 2.Australian Inst Marine Sci, AIMS JCU, PMB 3, Townsville, Qld 4810, Australia 3.Queensland Museum Network, Museum Trop Queensland, Biodivers & Geosci Program, Townsville, Qld 4810, Australia 4.Queensland Univ Technol, Sch Math Sci, Brisbane, Qld 4001, Australia 5.Australian Res Council Ctr Excellence Math & Stat, Melbourne, Vic 3010, Australia 6.Univ Hawaii Manoa, Hawaii Inst Marine Biol, Kaneohe, HI 96744 USA
Recommended Citation:
Roberts, T. Edward,Bridge, Tom C. L.,Caley, M. Julian,et al. Resolving the depth zonation paradox in reef-building corals[J]. ECOLOGY,2019-01-01,100(8)