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Low natural repopulation of marginal coral communities under the influence of upwelling

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Abstract

The study of coral repopulation in marginal communities may provide a useful analog for understanding the dynamics of coral reefs subjected to deleterious environmental changes. Repopulation of scleractinian reef corals may strongly impact the community structure on tropical reefs; however, the extent of this process on coral communities influenced by upwelling is unknown, especially in the Caribbean. In this study, the potential for natural repopulation of coral communities subjected to wind-driven upwelling was evaluated at three sites on the island of Cubagua, Venezuela. Coral spawning behavior was recorded and both larval settlement and juvenile abundance were estimated. Upwelling did not appear to affect coral spawning behavior, since at this locality spawning occurred at dates and times similar to those reported for well-developed reefs in the Caribbean. Also, juveniles produced by brooding corals were six times more abundant than those of broadcasting species, similar to patterns on other Caribbean reefs that are not under the influence of upwelling. By contrast, mean larval settlement (4 settlers m−2) and juvenile abundance (0.1 juveniles m−2) in Cubagua were both lower than those elsewhere in the Caribbean and on Pacific reefs. Thus, the potential for repopulation of these marginal communities seems lower than for well-developed coral reefs in other regions. These results suggest that more fully developed coral reefs also may have reduced repopulation potential, as they become influenced by suboptimal environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank GEOCOMSA and Escuela de Ciencias Aplicadas del Mar of the Universidad de Oriente for financial and logistic support; Juan Marcano for assistance in the field; Cesar Romero for co-supervise this work; Luis Marquez, Ainhoa Zubillaga, Denise Debrot, Percy Zanders, Jason B. Mackenzie, and Tracy Feldman for their valuable comments that improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela de Ciencias Aplicadas del Mar, Universidad de Oriente, Boca del Río, Venezuela

    Sebastián Rodríguez, Adriana Alvizu & Alejandro Tagliafico

  2. Departamento de Biología de Organismos, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, 1080-A, Venezuela

    Sebastián Rodríguez & Carolina Bastidas

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  1. Sebastián Rodríguez
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  2. Adriana Alvizu
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  3. Alejandro Tagliafico
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  4. Carolina Bastidas
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Correspondence to Sebastián Rodríguez.

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Handling editor: I. Nagelkerken

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Rodríguez, S., Alvizu, A., Tagliafico, A. et al. Low natural repopulation of marginal coral communities under the influence of upwelling. Hydrobiologia 624, 1–11 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-008-9662-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-008-9662-z

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