Survival rates of juvenile coral reef fishes differ between patchy and continuous habitats

摘要

Prediation has been thought to be a major factor organizing coral reef fish assemblages, and some reports have suggested that predation pressure varies according to the habitat type. We hypothesized that variation in prediation pressure is caused by the spatial pat- terns of coral colonies, i.e., a continuous or a patchy distribution. We conducted field experiments to determine whether (1) survival of juvenile varies between sites with dif- ferent habitat characteristics,(2) predation pressure is density-dependent, and (3) small- sized juveniles are susceptible to predation.