Abstract
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.
Highlights
Habitat heterogeneity shapes biological communities, a well-known process in terrestrial ecosystems but substantially unresolved within coral reef ecosystems
Within all 25 common reef fish families, species richness was positively correlated to coral richness and hue diversity (Figs. 3, S8, S9)
We establish for the first time the extent to which coral richness and hue diversity, when considered separately and in combination, predict fish species richness within each of the 25 common families found on reefs
Summary
Habitat heterogeneity shapes biological communities, a well-known process in terrestrial ecosystems but substantially unresolved within coral reef ecosystems. While structural heterogeneity in a habitat is a widely recognized framework for niche diversity and ecological opportunity, hue can shape the perception of biological processes such as social signaling, mimicry, and a posematism[8,9] This causes colouration to mediate the visual relationship between an organism and its e nvironment[9]. We integrated these data into the analyses of fish and coral taxonomic diversity by evaluating coral hue diversity as a covariate facilitating fish diversity, which may function concurrently or independently of coral species r ichness[40] We expanded this analysis to examine the contribution of the relationship observed within the 25 common reef fish families to maintaining global reef fish diversity. We postulate that integrating coral hue diversity as a covariate predictor of fish richness will explain additional variability, a trend that will persist within and among fish families, and across oceanic basins
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