Spatial variation in coral reef fish and benthic communities in the central Saudi Arabian Red Sea
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionMarine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
KAUST Grant Number
URF/1/1389-01-01URF/1/1973-01-01
Date
2017-06-06Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/624988
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Local-scale ecological information is critical as a sound basis for spatial management and conservation and as support for ongoing research in relatively unstudied areas. We conducted visual surveys of fish and benthic communities on nine reefs (3–24 km from shore) in the Thuwal area of the central Saudi Arabian Red Sea. Fish biomass increased with increasing distance from shore, but was generally low compared to reefs experiencing minimal human influence around the world. All reefs had a herbivore-dominated trophic structure and few top predators, such as sharks, jacks, or large groupers. Coral cover was considerably lower on inshore reefs, likely due to a 2010 bleaching event. Community analyses showed inshore reefs to be characterized by turf algae, slower-growing corals, lower herbivore diversity, and highly abundant turf-farming damselfishes. Offshore reefs had more planktivorous fishes, a more diverse herbivore assemblage, and faster-growing corals. All reefs appear to be impacted by overfishing, and inshore reefs seem more vulnerable to thermal bleaching. The study provides a description of the spatial variation in biomass and community structure in the central Saudi Arabian Red Sea and provides a basis for spatial prioritization and subsequent marine protected area design in Thuwal.Citation
Khalil MT, Bouwmeester J, Berumen ML (2017) Spatial variation in coral reef fish and benthic communities in the central Saudi Arabian Red Sea. PeerJ 5: e3410. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3410.Sponsors
This study was funded by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology through a Competitive Research Grant (URF/1/1389-01-01), the Red Sea Research Center (URF/1/1973-01-01), and baseline research funds to Michael L. Berumen. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Fieldwork was facilitated by the KAUST Coastal and Marine Research Core Lab, and Tane Sinclair-Taylor provided assistance with creating one of the figures.Publisher
PeerJJournal
PeerJPubMed ID
28603671Additional Links
https://peerj.com/articles/3410/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.7717/peerj.3410
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, 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.
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