Vulnerability of tropical fish communities across depth in the central Indian Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Coral reefs and their fish communities below scuba diving depth (>30 m), in mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) (∼30-150 m), in rariphotic (150-300 m), and in upper bathyal waters (300-500 m) are often underexplored, especially in the Indian Ocean. The paucity of data, including on the biodiversity, ecology, and vulnerability of these habitats and the communities they support, leads to their omission from most conservation and management decisions and practices. We investigated for the first time the structure and diversity (taxonomic and functional) of demersal fish communities from the central and southern atolls of the Maldives, spanning a wide bathymetric gradient of 2-500 m to better understand whether and how their vulnerability changes across depth. Abundance and biomass data from tr

SUBMITTER: Stefanoudis PV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12658959 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature