Abstract
Escalating climate impacts on coral reefs are increasingly expanding management goals beyond preserving biodiversity to also maintaining ecosystem functions. Morphological and ecological species traits can help assess changes within reef communities beyond taxonomic identities alone. However, our limited understanding of trait interactions between habitat-building corals and associated reef fishes and whether they are captured by current monitoring practices hampers management. Here, we apply co-inertia analyses to test whether trait assemblages in corals and fishes co-vary across different habitats and test whether different components of the reef fish community (fisheries vs. non-target species) display distinct relationships. We find that spatial co-variation across habitat types between coral and fish traits is strengthened by the addition of non-target fishes. Additionally, even in fisheries with diverse targets, non-target species make unique contributions to the overall trait structure and highlight the importance of considering monitoring protocols when drawing conclusions about traits and ecosystems.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Coral Reefs |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to the Chuuk Department of Marine Resources, Chuuk Conservation Society, Chuuk Women’s Council, and The Nature Conservancy Micronesia for their expertise and practical support. Thanks to Adele Dixon, Christy Starsinic, David Benavente, Clarice Graham, Season Kutta, Andrew McInnis, Selino Maxin, and Chimres Teresio for their participation in data collection. LA was funded by a Faculty Leeds Doctoral Scholarship. This project also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement TRIM-DLV-747102 to MB.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Aquatic Science