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The geochemical and biological study of corals
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Limited functional redundancy and more complementarity of herbivorous fish on shaping benthic community in coral reefs of South China Sea
Monday 7th @ 1010-1030, Conference Room 4
Sheng Liu* , South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xianzhi Lin, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Simin Hu, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hui Huang, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Presenter Email: shliu@scsio.ac.cn |
| As one of the most critical functional groups in coral reef ecosystem, a wide variety of herbivorous fish species were all recognized to play important roles in balancing the competition between coral and algae. Hence, this kind functional redundancy, occupying the same ecological niche, was considered to be important for enhancing resistance of coral reef. However, it remains unclear how this functional redundancy worked among different herbivorous fish species because of the limits on identifying algae food accurately, especially for the complex turf algae community or EAM (Epilithic algal matrix). To better understand the functional roles of herbivorous fish and their interspecific trophic interactions, the food spectrum of six herbivorous fish species in the coral reef of South China Sea was revealed by high-throughput sequencing method. More than 347 genera of food were detected totally. Brown algae, dinoflagellates, red algae, green algae and Arthropoda constituted the main dietary resources of these fishes. Food overlap among these fish was frequent in the group of algae, mainly from phylum of Ochrophyta, Rhodophyta and Dinoflagellata, indicating considerable functional redundancy of herbivorous fishes on phylum level. However, seen from the 144 trophic links between fishes and representative food items (relative abundance > 1%) constructed by Bipartite Webs analysis, only 30 genera were shared by two or more fish species, and the brown algae Sphacelaria sp. were the only food item consumed by all 6 fish species. Our results here suggested that herbivorous fish showed limited functional redundancy at a finer scale compared with previous conclusion from coarse food categorizations. Conversely, considerable food separation between different fish species, a higher functional complementary, may play a more important role in shaping benthic community, and indicated that each species of herbivorous fish is an indispensable part in maintaining the balance between coral and algae in coral reef ecosystem.
Keywords: Herbivorous reef fish, Functional redundancy, complementary, Phase shift, bipartite food webs
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