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Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea

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 re...

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Autores principales: Troyer, Emily M., Coker, Darren J., Berumen, Michael L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6011822/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29938133
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5014
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author Troyer, Emily M.
Coker, Darren J.
Berumen, Michael L.
author_facet Troyer, Emily M.
Coker, Darren J.
Berumen, Michael L.
author_sort Troyer, Emily M.
collection PubMed
description 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(2) 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.
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spelling pubmed-60118222018-06-22 Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea Troyer, Emily M. Coker, Darren J. Berumen, Michael L. PeerJ Ecology 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(2) 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. PeerJ Inc. 2018-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6011822/ /pubmed/29938133 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5014 Text en © 2018 Troyer et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Troyer, Emily M.
Coker, Darren J.
Berumen, Michael L.
Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title_full Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title_fullStr Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title_full_unstemmed Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title_short Comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the Red Sea
title_sort comparison of cryptobenthic reef fish communities among microhabitats in the red sea
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6011822/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29938133
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5014
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