NDLI: Small-scale environmental variation influences whether coral-dwelling fish promote or impede coral growth

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Chase, T. J. Pratchett, M. S. Walker, S. P. W. Hoogenboom, M. O.
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Mutualistic symbioses are ubiquitous in nature and facilitate high biodiversity and productivity of ecosystems by enhancing the efficiency of energy and nutrient use within ecological communities. For example, small groups of fish that inhabit coral colonies in reef ecosystems potentially enhance coral growth through defense from coral predators, aeration of coral tissue and nutrient provisioning. This study examines whether the prevalence and consequences of fish-coral interactions vary among sites with different environmental conditions in a coral reef lagoon, using the humbug damselfish Dascyllus aruanus and its preferred coral host Pocillopora damicornis as a study system. Using a field experiment, we tested the site-specific effects of D. aruanus on coral growth, and show that the cost-benefit ratio for corals hosting fish varies with local environmental variation. Results of this study also demonstrate that fish prefer to inhabit coral colonies with particular branch-spacing characteristics, and that the local abundance of D. aruanus influences the proportion of coral colonies within a site that are occupied by fish rather than increasing the number of fish per colony. We also show that corals consistently benefit from hosting D. aruanus via defense from predation by corallivorous butterflyfish, regardless of local environmental conditions. These findings highlight the need to consider the potential for multiple scale- and state-dependent interaction effects when examining the ecology of fish-coral associations. We suggest that fluctuating cost-benefit ratios for species interactions may contribute to the maintenance of different colony phenotypes within coral populations.
Starting Page	1009
Ending Page	1022
Page Count	14
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00298549
Journal	Oecologia
Volume Number	176
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	14321939
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2014-09-10
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Mutualism Pocillopora damicornis Species co-existence Associational defense Phenotypic plasticity Ecology Plant Sciences Hydrology/Water Resources
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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Morphological variation and different branch modularity across contrasting flow conditions in dominant Pocillopora reef-building corals

Delayed recovery and host specialization may spell disaster for coral-fish mutualism.

Data from: Genetic relatedness does not retain spatial pattern across multiple spatial scales: dispersal and colonization in the coral, Pocillopora damicornis (Dataset)

Endosymbiotic copepods may feed on zooxanthellae from their coral host, Pocillopora damicornis

Adding coral rubble to substrata enhances settlement of Pocillopora damicornis larvae

Data from: Impacts of temperature and lunar day on gene expression profiles during a monthly reproductive cycle in the brooding coral Pocillopora damicornis (Dataset)

Data from: Genetic diversity, clonality and connectivity in the scleractinian coral Pocillopora damicornis: a multi-scale analysis in an insular, fragmented reef system (Dataset)

Data from: Ocean acidification influences host DNA methylation and phenotypic plasticity in environmentally susceptible corals (Dataset)

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Small-scale environmental variation influences whether coral-dwelling fish promote or impede coral growth

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Morphological variation and different branch modularity across contrasting flow conditions in dominant Pocillopora reef-building corals

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