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Diverse habitat preferences of two sea cucumber species and the seasonal change in a coral reef area

  • Ecology
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Abstract

Different sea cucumbers have different preferred habitats and seasonal changes, which is still lack of detailed research. This study selects two common tropical sea cucumbers (Holothuria edulis and Stichopus chloronotus) to explore the reasons that affect their habitat selection and seasonal changes, so as to provide support for the spatial planning of sea cucumbers reserve in coral reef area. The study area is a compound distribution area of living coral reefs and sandy bottom in the north of Wuzhizhou Island. The survey time is January, April–September, 2019. Three fixed transects (G, H, and Q) were selected to reveal the population ecological characteristics of them in the typical dry season (January, April, May, and June) and rainy season (July, August, and September). The variation range of density for H. edulis and S. chloronotus were 2.0–8.9 inds./10 m2 and 0.2–0.7 inds./10 m2, respectively. The population density in rainy season was significantly higher than that in dry season (P<0.05). H. edulis tends to be distributed in deeper water. The distribution of H. edulis was significant positively correlated with the sand coverage and sand continuity in G transect (P<0.05), and significant negatively correlated with live coral coverage in three transects (P<0.01). The shift from dry season to rainy season is a key factor affecting their habitat preference. In dry season, the preferred habitats of S. chloronotus are small rock (SR), sand (S), and small coral reef (SCR), while the H. edulis is S, SR, and dead coral rubbles (DCR). In rainy season, the preferred habitats of S. chloronotus are shift to SCR and SR, while the H. edulis is SCR, DCR, and sand.

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as the datasets also forms parts of an ongoing study, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to Fengguo WANG and Zhigang ZHOU from Wuzhizhou Island Tourism Company for their help in fieldwork.

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Author notes

  1. Chunyang SUN and Duanjie HUANG contributed equally to this work and should be regarded as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Ecology and Environment, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Chunyang Sun

  2. College of Marine Science, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Duanjie Huang, Qiang Xu, Fei Gao, Xiubao Li & Aimin Wang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Chunyang Sun, Duanjie Huang, Qiang Xu, Fei Gao, Xiubao Li & Aimin Wang

  4. Hainan Provincial Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Centre, Haikou, 571126, China

    Duanjie Huang

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  1. Chunyang Sun
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  2. Duanjie Huang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qiang Xu.

Additional information

Supported by the National Key R&D Project of China (No. 2019YFD0901304), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42076097, 31760757), and the National Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province, China (No. 2019RC070)

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Sun, C., Huang, D., Xu, Q. et al. Diverse habitat preferences of two sea cucumber species and the seasonal change in a coral reef area. J. Ocean. Limnol. 40, 1578–1591 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-021-1254-z

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