Functional diversity: A need for assessing the ecological response of reef fish assemblages to a disturbance in protection strategies

• Autores: Rincón Díaz, Martha Patricia; Pittman, Simon; Eager, Aaron; Heppell, Selina
• Año de publicación: 2021
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: documento de conferencia
• Materia: FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY; FISH ASSEMBLAGES; CORAL REEFS
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

Developing and evaluating process-oriented metrics, such as functional trait diversity metrics, is a high priority to assess the ecological responses of reef fish communities to disturbances and for adaptive ecosystem-based management in marine protected areas (MPAs). We applied five functional diversity metrics (functional entities, redundancy, richness, dispersion, and evenness) to fish assemblage data from an 11-year monitoring dataset of coral reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands to assess: 1) the spatio-temporal variance in the trophic function of fish communities before, during and after a mass coral bleaching event in 2005; and 2) the association of fish functional diversity with benthic composition, diversity, and structure of reefs inside and outside of No-Take and Multiple Use MPAs. The lack of spatial variation in fish functional diversity metrics suggested no MPA effects during the evaluated time. After the coral bleaching event in 2005, the number of fish functional entities, functional richness, and variation (dispersion) declined inside a No-Take MPA in St. Croix, failing to return to pre-disturbance values over the subsequent seven years. Reefs with high topographic complexity and hard coral species richness supported high richness and redundancy of functional roles. We concluded that functional diversity metrics based on the trophic function of fishes should be considered as tools to monitor ecological functional recovery in MPAs.
Fil: Rincón Díaz, Martha Patricia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; Argentina. State University of Oregon; Estados Unidos
Fil: Pittman, Simon. University Of Plymouth. School Of Marine Sciences; Reino Unido
Fil: Eager, Aaron. University of New South Wales. Faculty of Science. School of Biological-earth and Environmental Sciences; Australia
Fil: Heppell, Selina. State University of Oregon; Estados Unidos
73rd Annual Gulf And Caribbean Fisheries Institute Virtual Meeting
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Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute