TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
AU - Troyer, Emily
AU - Coker, Darren James
AU - Berumen, Michael L.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2021-02-19
Acknowledgements: Funding: This project was funded by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (baseline research funds to Michael L. Berumen). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Michael Campbell for his mapmaking expertise, as well as Calder Atta, Royale Hardenstine, Alison Monroe, Tullia Terraneo, Matthew Tietbohl, and Sara Wilson for their assistance in the field. We are also grateful to Calder Atta, Simon Brandl, and Luke Tornabene for their help in identifying several fish species. Fieldwork was supported by the KAUST Coastal and Marine Resources Core Laboratory. Feedback from Christopher Goatley and Luke Tornabene greatly improved the manuscript.
PY - 2018/6/18
Y1 - 2018/6/18
N2 - Knowledge of community structure within an ecosystem is essential when trying to understand the function and importance of the system and when making related management decisions. Within the larger ecosystem, microhabitats play an important role by providing inhabitants with a subset of available resources. On coral reefs, cryptobenthic fishes encompass many groups and make up an important proportion of the biodiversity. However, these fishes are relatively small, exhibit extreme visual or behavioral camouflage, and, therefore, are often overlooked. We examined the differences in fish community structure between three common reef microhabitats (live hard coral, dead coral rubble, and sand) using ichthyocide stations in the central Red Sea. Using a combination of morphological and genetic (cytochrome oxidase I (COI) barcoding) techniques, we identified 326 individuals representing 73 species spread across 17 families, from fifteen 1 m quadrats. Fish assemblages in the three microhabitats were significantly different from each other. Rubble microhabitats yielded the highest levels of fish abundance, richness, and diversity, followed by hard coral, and then sand. The results show that benthic composition, even at a small scale, influences cryptobenthic communities. This study also provides new COI sequence data to public databases, in order to further the research of cryptobenthic fishes in the Red Sea region.
AB - Knowledge of community structure within an ecosystem is essential when trying to understand the function and importance of the system and when making related management decisions. Within the larger ecosystem, microhabitats play an important role by providing inhabitants with a subset of available resources. On coral reefs, cryptobenthic fishes encompass many groups and make up an important proportion of the biodiversity. However, these fishes are relatively small, exhibit extreme visual or behavioral camouflage, and, therefore, are often overlooked. We examined the differences in fish community structure between three common reef microhabitats (live hard coral, dead coral rubble, and sand) using ichthyocide stations in the central Red Sea. Using a combination of morphological and genetic (cytochrome oxidase I (COI) barcoding) techniques, we identified 326 individuals representing 73 species spread across 17 families, from fifteen 1 m quadrats. Fish assemblages in the three microhabitats were significantly different from each other. Rubble microhabitats yielded the highest levels of fish abundance, richness, and diversity, followed by hard coral, and then sand. The results show that benthic composition, even at a small scale, influences cryptobenthic communities. This study also provides new COI sequence data to public databases, in order to further the research of cryptobenthic fishes in the Red Sea region.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/628459
UR - https://peerj.com/articles/5014/
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048603943&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7717/peerj.5014
DO - 10.7717/peerj.5014
M3 - Article
C2 - 29938133
AN - SCOPUS:85048603943
VL - 6
SP - e5014
JO - PeerJ
JF - PeerJ
SN - 2167-8359
IS - 6
ER -