Resolving the depth zonation paradox in reef‐building corals
Roberts, T.E.; Bridge, T.C.L.; Caley, M.J.; Madin, J.S.; Baird, A.H. (2019). Resolving the depth zonation paradox in reef‐building corals. Ecology 100(8): e02761. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2761
In: Ecology. Ecological Society of America: Brooklyn, NY. ISSN 0012-9658; e-ISSN 1939-9170, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Roberts, T.E.
- Bridge, T.C.L.
- Caley, M.J.
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| Abstract |
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 modelling the abundance distributions of 110 coral species across a 45m 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. |
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