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Reef fish and habitat relationships in a Caribbean seascape: the importance of reef context

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Abstract

Marine protected area (MPA) effectiveness is contingent on understanding key ecological patterns and processes at appropriate spatial scales and may depend upon maintaining critical linkages among essential habitat patches to conserve reef-fish communities. Hypotheses were tested to investigate the importance of habitat linkages in the US Virgin Islands. As expected, reef context (the spatial pattern of surrounding habitat patches) was a strong predictor of reef fish assemblage structure. Specific relationships were functionally consistent with the ecology of the fishes of interest. For example, reefs with large amounts of seagrass nearby harbored the greatest numerical abundance of fishes, particularly mobile invertebrate feeders and the exploited fish families of Haemulidae (grunts) and Lutjanidae (snappers). Species richness for the entire fish community and within these fish groups was also strongly associated with reef context. Furthermore, reef fish mobility influenced how fishes related to reef context. Fish-habitat relationships were detected as far as 1 km from study reefs, suggesting that fish movements result in habitat encounter rates that may influence their patterns of distribution. Consequently, functional habitat connectivity of habitat patches appears important in structuring reef-fish assemblages, and suggests that landscape-scale metrics may provide insights useful to managers in the design of MPAs.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this work was provided, in part, by the Canon Science Scholars Program, the National Park Service, and the AAAS (award to RGD), and also the Biological Resources Division of the USGS. Logistical support provided by the Virgin Islands National Park with field assistance from Jason Hale, Thomas Kelly, Sherri Caseau and Iuri Herzfeld. Constructive comments on early drafts of this manuscript by Paul Zwick and Nick Funicelli greatly improved its content. We also thank Mike Allen, who provided advice on statistical analyses and Victor Bonito, who assisted with data preparation and management. Special thanks are owed to Rafe Boulon and Caroline Rogers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Florida, 7922 NW 71st St, Gainesville, FL, 32653, USA

    R. Grober-Dunsmore, T. K. Frazer & W. J. Lindberg

  2. National Marine Protected Areas Center Science Institute, National Marine Fisheries Service, 110 Shaffer Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, USA

    R. Grober-Dunsmore

  3. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Hawaii, Hilo, HI, 96720, USA

    J. Beets

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  1. R. Grober-Dunsmore
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  2. T. K. Frazer
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  3. W. J. Lindberg
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  4. J. Beets
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Correspondence to R. Grober-Dunsmore.

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Communicated by Ecology Editor P.J. Mumby.

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Grober-Dunsmore, R., Frazer, T.K., Lindberg, W.J. et al. Reef fish and habitat relationships in a Caribbean seascape: the importance of reef context. Coral Reefs 26, 201–216 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-006-0180-z

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