Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Cunningham 202, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada.
Hakai Institute, Heriot Bay, BC, V0P 1H0, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 14;11(1):18275. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97862-8.
Habitat heterogeneity shapes biological communities, a well-known process in terrestrial ecosystems but substantially unresolved within coral reef ecosystems. We investigated the extent to which coral richness predicts intra-family fish richness, while simultaneously integrating a striking aspect of reef ecosystems-coral hue. To do so, we quantified the coral richness, coral hue diversity, and species richness within 25 fish families in 74 global ecoregions. We then expanded this to an analysis of all reef fishes (4465 species). Considering coral bleaching as a natural experiment, we subsequently examined hue's contribution to fish communities. Coral species and hue diversity significantly predict each family's fish richness, with the highest correlations (> 80%) occurring in damselfish, butterflyfish, emperors and rabbitfish, lower (60-80%) in substrate-bound and mid-water taxa such as blennies, seahorses, and parrotfish, and lowest (40-60%) in sharks, morays, grunts and triggerfish. The observed trends persisted globally. Coral bleaching's homogenization of reef colouration revealed hue's contribution to maintaining fish richness, abundance, and recruit survivorship. We propose that each additional coral species and associated hue provide added ecological opportunities (e.g. camouflage, background contrast for intraspecific display), facilitating the evolution and co-existence of diverse fish assemblages.
生境异质性塑造了生物群落，这在陆地生态系统中是一个众所周知的过程，但在珊瑚礁生态系统中却没有得到充分解决。我们调查了珊瑚丰富度预测家族内鱼类丰富度的程度，同时整合了珊瑚礁生态系统的一个显著特征——珊瑚颜色。为此，我们在 74 个全球生态区的 25 个鱼类科中量化了珊瑚丰富度、珊瑚颜色多样性和物种丰富度。然后，我们将这一分析扩展到所有珊瑚礁鱼类（4465 种）。考虑到珊瑚白化是一种自然实验，我们随后检查了颜色对鱼类群落的贡献。珊瑚物种和颜色多样性显著预测了每个科的鱼类丰富度，其中雀鲷、蝴蝶鱼、皇帝鱼和兔鱼的相关性最高（>80%），而底栖和中层鱼类（如鳚鱼、海马和鹦嘴鱼）的相关性较低（60-80%），鲨鱼、海鳝、石斑鱼和扳机鱼的相关性最低（40-60%）。这些观察到的趋势在全球范围内都存在。珊瑚白化使珊瑚礁颜色趋于同质化，揭示了颜色对维持鱼类丰富度、丰度和幼鱼存活率的贡献。我们提出，每增加一个珊瑚物种和相关颜色都会提供额外的生态机会（例如，伪装、同种内展示的背景对比），从而促进多样化鱼类组合的进化和共存。
