Herbivorous sea urchins (Echinometra mathaei) support resilience on overfished and sedimented tropical reefs.

ABSTRACT: Human impacts are dramatically changing ecological communities, motivating research on resilience. Tropical reefs are increasingly undergoing transitions to short algal turf, a successional community that mediates either recovery to coral by allowing recruitment or transitions to longer turf/macroalgae. Intense herbivory limits turf height; subsequently, overfishing erodes resilience of the desirable coral-dominated reef state. Increased sedimentation also erodes resilience through smothering and herbivory suppression. In spite of this critical role, most herbivory studies on tropical reefs focus on fishes, and the contribution of urchins remains under-studied. To test how different herbivory and sedimentation scenarios impact turf resilience, we experimentally simulated, in situ, four fut

SUBMITTER: Fong CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10869737 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature