An experimental assessment of the impacts of coral loss on fish community composition in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

摘要

Caribbean coral reefs have undergone dramatic declines in survivorship in recent times. Among the most noticeable of these changes is loss of the once dominant habitat forming corals in the genus Acropora . In this study, I evaluated the impacts of these losses for reef fish communities through direct comparisons with the now dominant mounding corals. Since live representatives of Acropora are rare, I used ecologically relevant coral replicas to perform controlled experimental manipulations of coral habitat structure. Results of this study indicate that: (1) the presence of small territorial/piscivorous fish can significantly impact habitat usage by other fish, (2) fish habitat selection is based on more that than just the structural complexity of corals and (3) that assessments will be site, time and species dependent.