Using Community Composition and Successional Theory to Guide Site-Specific Coral Reef Management.

ABSTRACT: High spatial or temporal variability in community composition makes it challenging for natural resource managers to predict ecosystem trajectories at scales relevant to management. This is commonly the case in nearshore marine environments, where the frequency and intensity of disturbance events vary at the sub-kilometer to meter scale, creating a patchwork of successional stages within a single ecosystem. The successional stage of a community impacts its stability, recovery potential, and trajectory over time in predictable ways. Here we demonstrate the value of successional theory for interpreting fine-scale community heterogeneity using Hawaiian coral reefs as a case study. We tracked benthic community dynamics on 36 forereefs over a 6-year period (2017-2023) that captures impacts from

SUBMITTER: McCarthy OS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11774138 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature