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    Diversity and abundance of invertebrate epifaunal assemblages associated with gorgonians are driven by colony attributes

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    Type
    Article
    Authors
    Curdia, Joao
    Carvalho, Susana cc
    Pereira, Fábio R.
    Guerra-García, José Manuel
    Santos, Miguel Neves Dos
    Cunha, Marina R.
    KAUST Department
    Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
    Date
    2015-03-20
    Online Publication Date
    2015-03-20
    Print Publication Date
    2015-06
    Permanent link to this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/10754/566101
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The present study aimed to explicitly quantify the link between the attributes of shallow-water gorgonian colonies (Octocorallia: Alcyonacea) and the ecological patterns of associated non-colonial epifaunal invertebrates. Based on multiple regression analysis, we tested the contribution of several attributes (colony height, width, and area, fractal dimension as a measure of colony complexity, lacunarity as a measure of the heterogeneity, and “colonial” epibiont cover) to abundance and taxonomic richness of associated assemblages. The results highlight the variation in the response of epifaunal assemblages to the gorgonian colony characteristics. The nature and intensity of the relationships were gorgonian species-dependent and varied from one taxonomic group to another. For both gorgonian species analyzed, the strongest predictor of species richness and abundance of the epifaunal assemblages was “colonial” epibiont cover, possibly due to a trophic effect (direct or indirect enhancement of food availability) combined with the surface available for colonization (species–area effect). Although structural complexity is usually indicated as the main driver for rich and abundant coral-associated assemblages, no significant relationship was observed between fractal dimension and the community descriptors; lacunarity, which reflects the sizes of the inter-branch spaces, was only linked to taxonomic richness in the assemblages associated with Leptogorgia lusitanica. The validity of the paradigm that structural complexity enhances biodiversity may be scale-dependent. In the case of gorgonians, the effect of complexity at the “garden” level may be more relevant than at the individual colony level. This reinforces the need for the conservation of gorgonian aggregation areas as a whole in order to preserve host diversity and size structure. © 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
    Citation
    Cúrdia, J., Carvalho, S., Pereira, F., Guerra-García, J. M., Santos, M. N., & Cunha, M. R. (2015). Diversity and abundance of invertebrate epifaunal assemblages associated with gorgonians are driven by colony attributes. Coral Reefs, 34(2), 611–624. doi:10.1007/s00338-015-1283-1
    Sponsors
    J. Curdia (SFRH/BD/29491/2006) and S. Carvalho (SFRH/BPD/26986/2006) benefit from Ph.D. and postdoctoral grants, respectively, awarded by "Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia" (FCT). The authors would like to acknowledge John Pearman for proofreading the manuscript and two anonymous reviewers for the invaluable comments that helped improving a previous version of the manuscript. This work was partially supported by European Funds through COMPETE and by National Funds through the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) within project PEst-C/MAR/LA0017/2013.
    Publisher
    Springer Nature
    Journal
    Coral Reefs
    DOI
    10.1007/s00338-015-1283-1
    ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
    10.1007/s00338-015-1283-1
    Scopus Count
    Collections
    Articles; Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)

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