Abstract
The disappearance of Acropora palmata from reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) represents a significant loss in the amount of structurally complex habitat available for reef-associated species. The consequences of such a widespread loss of complex structure on ecosystem processes are still unclear. We sought to determine whether the disappearance of complex structure has adversely affected grazing and invertebrate predation rates on a shallow reef in the FKNMS. Surprisingly, we found grazing rates and invertebrate predation rates were lower in the structurally complex A. palmata branches than on the topographically simple degraded reefs. We attribute these results to high densities of aggressively territorial damselfish, Stegastes planifrons, living within A. palmata. Our study suggests the presence of agonistic damselfish can cause the realized spatial patterns of ecosystem processes to deviate from the expected patterns. Reef ecologists must therefore carefully consider the assemblage of associate fish communities when assessing how the mortality of A. palmata has affected coral reef ecosystem processes.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the staff of the National Undersea Research Center for making this possible. Also, we thank C. Martin, R. Puntila, L. Lee, M. Dueker, K. Blankenhorn, and K. Robinson for their assistance. This work would not have been possible without the help of the DISL tech support team of N. Nazarian, K. Weis, and A. Gunther. We would also like to thank L. Toth, R. Aronson, K. Heck, W. F. Precht, and D. Burkepile for their comments and suggestions. This manuscript was vastly improved through the comments of P. Edmunds, M. Hay, and three anonymous reviewers. This work was made possible by grants from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington in partnership with the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (J.F.V., NA08OAR4300863) and the University of South Alabama (N.P.L.).
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Communicated by Ecology Editor Prof. Mark Hay
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338_2012_891_MOESM1_ESM.eps
Supplementary material S1) Stegastes planifrons and S. partitus densities in `Live’ and `Rubble’ sites. Letters and numbers denote significantly different groups. (EPS 20 kb)
338_2012_891_MOESM2_ESM.eps
Supplementary material S2) Density (m−2) of damselfish size classes in live Acropora palmata and ‘Rubble’ sites. (EPS 845 kb)
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Lemoine, N.P., Valentine, J.F. Structurally complex habitats provided by Acropora palmata influence ecosystem processes on a reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Coral Reefs 31, 779–786 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-012-0891-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-012-0891-2