Abstract
The Spermonde Archipelago is a complex of ~70 mostly populated islands off Southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia, in the center of the Coral Triangle. The reefs in this area are exposed to a high level of anthropogenic disturbances. Previous studies have shown that variation in the benthos is strongly linked to water quality and distance from the mainland. However, little is known about the fish assemblages of the region and if their community structure also follows a relationship with benthic structure and distance from shore. In this study, we used eight islands of the archipelago, varying in distance from 1-55 km relative to the mainland, and three years of surveys, to describe benthic and fish assemblages and to examine the spatial and temporal influence of benthic composition on the structure of the fish assemblages. Cluster analysis indicated that distinct groups of fish were associated with distance, while few species were present across the entire range of sites. Relating fish communities to benthic composition using a multivariate generalized linear model confirmed that fish groups relate to structural complexity (rugosity) or differing benthic groups; either algae, reef builders (coral and crustose coralline algae) or invertebrates and rubble. From these relationships we can identify sets of fish species that may be lost given continued degradation of the Spermonde reefs. Lastly, the incorporation of water quality, benthic and fish indices indicates that local coral reefs responded positively after an acute disturbance in 2013 with increases in reef builders and fish diversity over relatively short (one year) time frames. This study contributes an important, missing component (fish community structure) to the growing literature on the Spermonde Archipelago, a system that features environmental pressures common in the greater Southeast Asian region.
Highlights
We predicted that the coral reef fish communities of the Spermonde Archipelago would be sensitive to acute perturbations, and we anticipated that there would be differences in assemblage structures related to the on-to-offshore gradient displayed in the benthic habitat
There was a significant change in fish assemblage structure in 2013 coinciding with the outbreak of the live coral predator, CoTS (Plass-Johnson et al, 2015b)
In this study we could identify groups of fish species that displayed a relationship to the on-to-offshore variation in benthic structure, while other groups displayed more localized or stochastic patterns
Summary
The distribution of fishes among coral reefs has been central to numerous studies throughout coastal and oceanic areas of the world (Bellwood and Hughes, 2001; Wismer et al, 2009; Kulbicki et al, 2013), including areas of research testing theories in biodiversity (Connolly et al, 2003) and assessing ecosystem function (Stuart-Smith et al, 2013), ecosystem services (Worm et al, 2006), the impacts of global and local disturbances (Wilson et al, 2006) and importantly, defining the baseline status of communities with respect to the presence of species and their abundances. The links between ecosystem variation and coral reef fish assemblages have been studied across a wide range of spatial scales (Bell and Galzin, 1984; Bellwood and Hughes, 2001; Alvarez-Filip et al, 2009; Wismer et al, 2009; Chong-Seng et al, 2012) and short and long temporal scales (Pandolfi et al, 2003; McClanahan et al, 2007; Babcock et al, 2010; AlvarezFilip et al, 2015; Plass-Johnson et al, 2016b) It is well-known that the structure of coral reef fish assemblages and biodiversity are strongly linked to ecosystem health and functioning (Wismer et al, 2009; Chong-Seng et al, 2012). Studies that examine processes that might drive ecosystem regime shifts are important, studies of their consequences on species’ distributions and how long these effects last are critical to evaluate the potential impacts of global and local disturbances
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