Temporal variation in invertebrate recruitment on an Eastern Pacific coral reef

Abstract

The recruitment of marine invertebrate larvae to coral reef ecosystems is critical for the continued productivity of these highly biodiverse habitats. Despite such importance, little is known about temporal variation patterns of invertebrate larval recruitment in coral reefs ecosystems, aside from studies focused only on reef corals themselves. Given this knowledge deficiency, recruitment onto dead coral branches was monitored over a one-year period in the Central Mexican Pacific, and recruit assemblage and density both changed over time. In particular, recruitment was higher in the warmer months, possibly due to reproductive processes and/or increases in metabolic rates associated with high temperatures and seasonal/local events such as upwellings that increase the food resources available for the recruits which just before the warm season, when the recruitment is more more prevalent during the warm season. The most common invertebrate recruits were malacostracans, ostracods, gastropods, maxillopods, and polychaetes, and foraminifers were commonly observed, as well. Future works in this region will seek to understand whether recruit density and diversity change in response to elevated temperatures associated with global climate change.