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• W624806345 abstract "Halting the global decline in biodiversity is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Biodiversity is being lost at every hierarchical level of biological organisation, from ecosystems to communities to species to populations and to genes. Declining diversity at any one of these levels may have serious implications for other levels of biodiversity, either above or below it in the hierarchy. However, the common factors determining local biodiversity and the functional relationships between the different levels of biodiversity are poorly understood. This thesis explores selected relationships between different levels of diversity and the potential consequences of diversity loss for fishes in coral reef ecosystems. Specifically, the four chapters of this thesis addressed the following questions: (1) How does coral habitat diversity and composition affect the diversity, abundance and structure of fish communities? (2) How does a decline in fish diversity affect the productivity of coral reef fish communities? (3) What effect does the loss of fish diversity have on the overall abundance of coral reef fish species? (4) What is the relationship between species diversity and genetic diversity in coral reef fish?Coral reef health is declining worldwide, with reductions in coral cover, habitat structural complexity and coral species richness commonly reported. While loss of coral cover and habitat structural complexity have been shown to have significant effects on the diversity and abundance of fish communities, the consequences of coral diversity loss on the diversity and composition of reef fish assemblages is largely unknown. Chapter 2 describes the outcomes of manipulative experiments designed to test how coral diversity and species composition affect local fish diversity, abundance and community structure. Parallel experiments were conducted at 2 geographic locations (Kimbe Bay, PNG and Lizard Is, Australia) differing in regional species composition to identify common local processes. Replicate patch reefs of the same size and coral cover were constructed to provide two comparisons: (1) Patch reefs with three different levels of coral diversity (one, three and six species) tested the effects of coral diversity on reef fish biodiversity. (2) Single-species patch reefs made from each of the six coral species were used to test the effects of coral identity on reef fish biodiversity. Fish were allowed to colonise the patch reefs over a 12-month period, with abundance and diversity recorded at regular intervals. Fish species richness increased with increasing coral species richness at both locations, although results were only significant for Kimbe Bay.Evenness in fish also tended to increase on patch reefs with higher coral diversity, but overall abundance was little affected by coral species richness. Some single coral treatments also had similar levels of fish diversity and abundance compared to the higher coral diversity treatments. At both geographic locations, the presence of particular coral species, rather than the diversity of coral species per se, appears to be critical in promoting high local fish diversity. Multivariate analyses illustrated that the six coral species used at each location supported very different fish communities, indicating that most coral reef fish species distinguish coral habitat at the level of coral species. Following from this, the medium and high coral diversity treatments were colonised by fish assemblages that represented a combination of the fish communities inhabiting the constituent coral species. These findings highlight the importance of coral species in explaining local reef fish biodiversity, and indicate that the loss of key coral species will have a significant negative impact on reef fish biodiversity.Biodiversity has been hypothesised to have a positive impact on the productivity of biological assemblages, because niche complementarity and facilitation among the constituent species can result in more efficient use of resources. However, these conclusions are based almost entirely on studies with plant communities, and the relationship between diversity and productivity at higher trophic levels is largely unknown, especially in the marine environment. In Chapter 3, a manipulative field experiment designed to test the effects of species richness and species identity on biomass accumulation in a reef fish assemblage at Lizard Island is described. Thirty juveniles belonging to three planktivorous damselfish species (Pomacentridae) were released onto each patch reef according to three different levels of fish species richness (1, 2 and 3 species) and seven combinations of fish species. Accumulation of biomass was recorded after 18 days. Species richness had no effect on the percent increase in biomass (weight) in this assemblage. However, the percent increase in biomass differed among fish species and among the different combinations of species. Patterns of biomass were best explained by species-specific differences in growth, and differences in the intensity of both intra- and interspecific competition. Niche complementarity and facilitation do not appear to be important drivers of productivity within this guild of planktivorous fishes. As a result, overall productivity may be resilient to declining reef fish biodiversity, except for the loss of fast growing fish species.The overall abundance of individuals in a community may be resilient to declining biodiversity if the loss of some species results in an increase in abundance of surviving species (so-called “density compensation”). However, total density may increase with increasing species richness in unsaturated communities, which can be explained by complementarity, facilitation and / or a sampling effect. Chapter 4 provides the first experimental test of how changes in fish species richness affect patterns of abundance in a coral reef fish community. Species diversity in recruiting damselfish was manipulated on experimental patch reefs to two, four, six and eight species over a period of 10 weeks. Under a density compensation model, different treatments were predicted to reach the same total densities, and densities of individual species should decline with increasing diversity. These hypotheses were not supported. Overall density increased significantly with increasing species richness and individual species densities exhibited little variation with changing species diversity. The absence of density compensation suggests that these communities do not reach saturation over 10 weeks, despite an upper limit in species richness and in some species, individual species abundances, appears to have been reached. Results suggest that the progressive loss of species in reef fish assemblages due to habitat loss and climate change will lead to an overall decline in the abundance of reef fishes, which in turn may disrupt their role in coral reef ecosystems.Understanding the relationship between genetic diversity and species diversity is critical for developing contemporary strategies for biodiversity conservation. While concordant large-scale clines in genetic and species diversity have been described for terrestrial organisms, whether or not these parameters co-vary in marine species is largely unknown. In Chapter 5, patterns of genetic diversity and composition were examined for 11 reef fish species (from 5 families) sampled at 3 locations across the Pacific Ocean species diversity gradient, from high diversity on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (~1600 species), intermediate in New Caledonia (~1400 species), to low diversity in French Polynesia (~800 species). The combined genetic diversity for all 11 species paralleled the decline in species diversity from the West to East, with French Polynesia exhibiting lowest total haplotype and nucleotide diversity. Haplotype diversity consistently declined towards French Polynesia in all species and nucleotide diversity declined in the majority of species. Coinciding with reduced genetic diversity, the population of most species in French Polynesia also exhibited significant genetic differentiation from the Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia locations. The location and time of species origin, vicariance events, reduced gene flow and increasing isolation, as well as decreasing habitat area from the West to the East Pacific are all likely to have contributed to the positive correlation between genetic and species diversity across the Pacific Ocean, with isolation and habitat area likely to be most influential. The congruence between species and genetic diversity, and the large-scale patterns in species and genetic composition, suggest conservation strategies applied at one level may act as a surrogate for the other.This thesis is an important step in developing a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships between different levels of biodiversity on coral reefs. The results will be important in predicting the likely impacts that diversity loss at any one level will have on other levels within the ecosystem. The connections between different levels of diversity have been found to be strong in some cases, but not others, and to be causally related in some cases, but not others. The study has highlighted the strong causal link between coral and fish species biodiversity, and a complex relationship between fish species and genetic diversity. In the future, these links will be important components of integrated understanding of the consequences of declining biodiversity in coral reef ecosystems." @default.
• W624806345 created "2016-06-24" @default.
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• W624806345 date "2010-05-01" @default.
• W624806345 modified "2023-09-23" @default.
• W624806345 title "From genes to ecosystems: patterns, processes and consequences of declining biodiversity in coral reef fish communities" @default.
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